A brief overview of the devices i use to practice my hobby as a HAM Operator;

Recently i started listening to the most known repeater in the Netherlands. ( PI2NOS ). The reason for listening to PI2NOS was to learn more of the daily usage of being a good HAM Operator. After hooking up the PI2NOS stream ( link below ) to my Asterisk PBX i was able to listen to the repeater as soon as i got home. Within a week or 2 i decided I should also be able to listen to QSO’s from my car. I needed a transceiver.

If you want a cheap transceiver to start listening to other HAM Operators i must say, the Baofeng UV-5R really does his job. The transceiver is fully programmable by computer, is capable of using 2 frequency bands ( 145Mhz and 434Mhz ) and is also capable of using standard PMR frequencies which can be programmed directly in the memory by programmer cable.

A picture of the Baofeng UV5-RA

The application i used to program the Baofeng is called CHIRP. I tried using the factory delivered software but i found out the software just does not work. After a short Google query i found out CHIRP existed and i got to work.

Needless to say, CHIRP does it’s job way better than the default software. If you think of buying a Baofeng transceiver please, for your own sake use CHIRP. If i ever find some time, i will give more information on how to use CHIRP.

After some experimenting with the Baofeng UV5-RA i decided i needed a new antenna, The Antenna can be found here