My 3 ham radios ... Just a bit of a comparison
Dipole is DIY , SWR is almost 1:1 and about 6 meters above the ground ..
the disposable amateur radio joins the ranks of the bic lighter and dixie cup….
btw i picked up a uv3r really cheap at a yardsale last week.its useless near downtown dayton and moraine oh due to intermod.
out here in the sticks its just ok.tossed it in my road toolkit for frs/gmrs on site use.i think i can get $3 worth of use from it…
Yeah , you canT expect much range from a hand held ..
But team it up with a decent antenna , and no reason you cant get 25 miles +
I have a 2 meter DIY dipole ( vertical ) that I stick on the end of a Squid pole ( 8 meter modified to 6 meter ) ..
I can hit a repeater quite some distance away with 0.5 Watt ..
I think you will find most people in Europe / America are buying these to hit local repeaters , I can hear police ambulance from over 100KM away ( repeaters ) , but I can hear people from quite a distance with my Dipole
Public repeaters are few and far between here in Australia , and from what I understand are growing smaller every year due to associated costs , the UHF CB repeaters are very rare and hard to find . Most of the ones I can reach are run by the amateur radio clubs .
Much like budget flashlights , these radio's have a place , and are a lot of value for the money .. No you cant expect perfection or Japanese quality for less than $50 , but for the money they offer a cheap entry into the hobby .. Sure there will always be the people that look down there nose at anything costing less than $1000 , but that's life .
Always be some one with a better flashlight , radio , car , house , a bigger bank account , deeper pockets , that's just life .
Very interesting hobby 
What Ham Radio do you recommend for less than 50$?
Either the Baofeng UV-B5 or B6 , or the Baofeng UV-82
I have a UV-B5 on order as well as the UV-82 ...
The reason I got the 3 in the Video , is they can take AA batteries with the correct adapter .. ( AA is ever so slightly important to me )
Just depends on what your needs are ?
Do you want NIMH ability ?
If you dont care about AA , then the UV-82
If you demand AA as an option , then the TYT ...
If price is important , then the UV-5R or variant off ...
What about programming ?
Dont want to use a PC , then the UV-5R , or the TYT ..
Both can program duplex from the keypad .
Again it just depends on what your needs are ..
Hit Ebay ( search dual band walkie talkie ) once you hit about $80 there is a little more variety and hopefully better quality .
Otherwise its mostly Baofeng .
I think I paid $36USD shipped for my Baofeng UV-B5 , which makes it insanely cheap , and the B5 has a decent reputation ...
I think I should get the B5 and UV-82 after the Easter holidays ..
Alas, I am already hearing the CB-blabbermouth types on 2-meter.
They have no clue there’s a local band plan, and want to get into arguments about “who was on this frequency first” and cuss out anyone who asks for their call sign.
Cheap tech has disadvantages.
old4570 Thank you for your help!
btw. I like the look of UV-5R
I have the Baofeng UV-5R from FT
I build me a makeshift ground plane antenna using a scrap metal shroud from a fan
Called the fan-tenna
http://www.qsl.net/w4sat/fantenna.htm
I get over 10 miles simplex at 5 watts with it tuned at 146mhz~ and the antenna slid up on my carport
I also highly recommend this
Cool stuff. One of the houses I bought about twenty years ago has a tower on the property. The owner was big into the ham radio stuff. I think the tower was about 150 feet or so. He was supposed to come and get it, we put it in the contract when I bought the house. He never did come and get it so I ended up using it to get FM and AM radio. The house is on Lake Huron and I could get stations across the lake coming out of Canada.
The house I’m in now is two stories and has about a 30 foot antenna on top of the roof. I wonder what I could expect with one of the B5’s. I live in North Eastern Michigan at “the top of the mitt”.
30 foot with a good J-Pole and some 214…about 20-25 miles, good line of sight, even further
If you can hit repeaters, well…then you get the distance the repeaters can transmit
I hate this… Now I have to spend my money on ham radio 
Please tell mi which one has the best specifications.
I don’t know what is important in ham radio(I assume that power 8) and frequency range (?))
I think the Banggood has many Baofeng’s http://www.banggood.com/Wholesale-Walkie-Talkies-c-2576.html
Too many for me to decide which one should I buy :weary:
BTW. I’m 22.5km(14miles) from the nearest repeater in a straight line.
5 watts should be more than enough…I hit a repeater in downtown Houston over 30 miles away from Baytown with mine, but it is at almost 2K feet on top of a building
With a simple CB converted to 2 meter mag mount on my truck I talked from Baytown to Galveston on 75 watts with my mobile Yaesu FT-2900…but the guy I was talking to was at 300 feet and pushing 50 watts
If you want REAL distance…6 meter and longer reaaaaaly get out there (HF) but that takes a general license that I don’t have yet
Transmit power is the last thing to worry about , most of the hand helds do 4 to 5 watts , a few do 7w ..
The antenna is more important , as a well designed antenna gives you " GAIN " , what gain does it multiplies the power ... Its an interesting subject ( antenna )
http://www.zcg.com.au/antenna-gain-explained.html
What you want from your radio is a powerful or sensitive receiver , that can pick up weak signals relatively cleanly with as little noise as possible ..
In the video , 151.950 mhz is a broadcast from reasonably far away ( very weak signal ) , and I can only pick it up with a good antenna .
The Baofeng and Tonfa both have a fair amount of noise ( distortion ) picking up this weak signal , whilst the TYT picks it up rather clearly ( better receiver )
152.000 mhz is a much stronger signal , and all the radios pick it up clearly with the vertical dipole , but struggle some what with the factory antennas .
There is so much misinformation out there , so deciding what you want becomes tricky ..
Which is why I decided to just get a few samplers to see for myself ..
SO far =
You want a radio with a good receiver
The antenna is more important than the radio
Most after market antenna dont SWR well , the factory antenna are better in this regard ( whips or rubber ducky )
The bigger the antenna , the better you receive ( it does not mean that its good for transmitting )
Do you plan to use the radio for line of sight ? or long range ? , better start looking at antenna and what you can utilize
Vertical Dipoles are easy to make if you DIY , ( I have made 5 so far ) , all very light weight with easy to source parts
There are just so many options ..
As for the best Transmitter ? , it could be the Baofeng UV-82 ( out of the Baofengs ) , I just dont know ..
Which is why I will end up owning the UV-5R , UV-B5 and the UV-82 to find out .. And what I will be looking for is the best receiver .. Otherwise they are some what samo samo !
the receiver is the limiting factor with these.
too good/high of antenna and the front end gets clobbered if close to any major city.
these are ok with the rubber dummy load they ship with.too good of antenna is bad with these.
a local tried one as it was cheap.useless on an outdoor antenna.found an old radioshack mobile and now he can hear the rest of the gang.i went from in the noise to 20 over to him.and the rest of us within 35 miles were full quieting.
any toy can transmit and these do other than harmonics/spurious are borderline on some samples.
keeping it on a low profile antenna minimises the impact of that too.
but anything that gives a new operator their first rig on a tight budget is good.like a modern day eico seven drifty three
I’m KB3OYZ, or should i say…
kilo bravo three, oscar yankee zulu, lmao.
I’m not a “snob”, and dont make fun of CB. Heck, i freely admit i still talked on 38 lower, even after i got my ticket. Honestly? hams making fun of CB doesnt make any sense… getting really into CB is what MAKES a person into a HAM, lol…
anyways… take this for what its worth…
a bunch of guys were having a ragchew on 38 lower (american CB, 38 lower side band)
i WANNA remember thats 27.3850 Mhz, LSB… but dont quote my memory on the frequency
anyways? big winter rag chew night… good reception we were having guys from all over join in we normally couldnt hear them. i HAVE a linear, but, wasnt using it… i had made a home made antenna, out of an old 18 foot piece of COAX cable… tossed a string over a tree limb and hauled it over…
copied everyone, my SWR wasnt real great….maybe 1.3 to 1.5 was best i got by trimming… but copied everyone fine (i’m up on a hill).
i can hear a guy FINE from 35 miles away?? he insists on cranking on his linear… made his voice sound funny… all it DID, was mke him give me a 4 or 5 on my meter, instead of a 2… and made his voice sound funny.
he can hear ME just fine too… when i got my solarcon or whatever base antenna up? i go the match about perfect… once again? i can copy everyone, everyone can hear me fine… and i was running 4 watts.
I guess if i put my 250 watt linear on, people from further away might hear me, but, if i cant receive them, what good is it doing me?
=
mobile? again CB? (trucker 9 this time… traveling late at night…) back then i ran a nine foot stainless whip… had a nice match on it.
i was talking about a wreck location, and was looking when i hit the mile marker?? I complained he was MISTAKEN… i was THERE, there was no wreck, no speed trap, nothing.
took a few other guys to figure out, I was on ANOTHER HIGHWAY (many miles away, lol), and no one could believe i was hearing THOSE guys fine, and they were hearing ME fine too… not to mention, they didnt believe i didnt run a linear mobile, lol…
=
galaxy dx949, all i did was unlock the clarifier for side band tuning… no power mods, i hate that crap. all it does is ruin your audio signal, lol.
get a good antenna going, base or mobile… get a good MATCH going… power is a secondary requirement. good quiet RECEIVE and a good antenna match?mean more than anything else, for good general purposes…
??????????????????
Example of a ham band plan: http://ncpa.n0ary.org/bandusage.html
(don’t rely on this outside the specific area, yours will be different)
CB propagation—skip during higher part of sunspot cycle: BtoClub.com is for sale | HugeDomains
“Taking advantage of this skip … Part 95, Subpart D of the FCC rules.”
Lots of that will be happening for the next handful of years.
Sunspots:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml
http://www.solarham.net/
Yeah , if you want range ! = you dont want omni directional .
You want a antenna that is directional , or works best in one direction ..
Yagi antennas - Most of your TV antennas are Yagi designs , and many resourceful people turn them into short wave antenna ..
Only problem with Yagi , you need to turn it in the direction you want to talk , you can go outside and turn it manually or get a remote rotator . ( can get expensive )
You can have a 2 element Yagi to a the sky is the limit Yagi ( though most seem to stop around a 10 element Yagi )
I built a 4 element Yagi , and it worked , a lot more directional power , receiving and sending . Only problem is it weighs too much for the budget materials Im using .
So currently looking at budget materials that will allow me to build a much much lighter 4 element Yagi .
My dipoles can hit repeaters 50km away on low power ( 1W or there about ) , and @ 4W almost 100km away ( Mt Baw Baw repeater 100km away ) in the evening .
So if I can hit a repeater 100km away under the right conditions , thats almost 100km range on a omni directional antenna ..
A Yagi antenna could in theory more than double that range ..
I have put one of these in my truck with a permanent (had to drill a hole) antenna mount with a fairly decent dual band antenna…works AWESOME! Plus has a cig lighter for power so I can turn off and on with just pushing it in the cig lighter
Great little radios!