@bond I went dirt cheap for my first radio. #Baofeng #BFF8HP with a #Nagoya 16” whip antenna and a magnet mount antenna for the car. I’m really impressed with this little thing so far. Spent about $130 or so for the whole setup.

As of 2019, the BF-F8HP is supposed to be band locked when you get it, but’s not. You can lock it yourself with #Chirp by defining upper and lower freq for each band in Settings -> Other Settings.

Unfortunately, this also locks out receive, but I’m willing to take that hit for the added security of knowing I can’t accidentally transmit on police, fire, military, etc., weather service channels.

#BFF8HP #HamRadio

Finally figured out the #Baofeng #BFF8HP. When setting up repeater pairs, be careful you don’t program a transmit frequency AND an offset. Doing so could double your offset and put you out of band.

After saving an entry, switch to channel mode and use the * key to view your “return settings” which displays your transmit frequency.

Manual configuration of this thing is so counterintuitive, it drives me nuts but it is a pretty sweet radio, and very affordable.

#HamRadio