Advice on buying a new radio

[Alloneword]

Hi all, i'm looking at buying some kind of radio, now i guess like most of you i'm no virgin.
I came into radio in the late AM 27mhz days in the UK and moved over to legal 27mhz as it came into force then messed about with 2m (pirate) and various scanners, that was in the day when plod was on 147 in the Met but have been fairly inactive for many years in fact i still have a Yupi 7100 in the draw that has not been fired up in years, it's an older scanner no ctcss or nothing like that.

So i'm in London and in my case when the SHTF i'm wondering what kind of radio i should be looking at, should it just be a normal radio with SW bands but having said that i have no idea how useful SW will be to me, I know the met police is out of the question but i can still get LFB (AM) and i think LAS, my worry is a major flood or the River Thames flooding so i guess LFB and RNLI freq would be used but as for anything else i have no idea, can anyone give any suggestions of various radios and also what freq i should be looking at will these be coded, I'd love to be able to get something waterproof but that is not vital.

Pro kit like Icom/Kenwood etc i feel may well be overkill, what you need to bear in mind is if the Thames was to flood what freq would get used and i guess when we know what freq are used that will point me in the right direction of kit to look for, no need for a TX unit and i'd like to keep things under £100 as over last few months i have spent a fortune on other stuff.

All1

[filsgreen]

Hi and welcome to the forum. You may want to have a look at a post that I started.

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=12355

There is plenty of information all over the net about the Baofeng UV5R, especially Youtube.

Phil

[Alloneword]

I did read that thread Phil and too be honest, i'm worried about it's long term reliability, i mean £20 for something with those specs i would not want to relay on it, it may be good now but when the SHTF I think i'd prefer something that may be a bit more sensative, after all all that coverage is no good to man nor beast if the radio is "deaf"

All1

[Hamradioop]

The UV5 series of radio are sensitive enough for most people and are easy to overload on a large antenna. so no need to worry about them being deaf. I have heard of no reliability issue with them but at £20 you can keep a stock of them. Why not take a foundation License course you could have a license over a couple of weeks as the exam system and licensing has changed sine the days of the illegal AM CB in the 70s

[Wingfoot]

I would have no qualms in recommending the UV5R to anyone.

I've got several of them now & all work well.

Yes their inexpensive but for the price you get probably one of the most versatile radios out there, it's usable frequency range is huge but as well as that it can be adapted easily to multiple situations & they are plenty rugged enough for everyday use.

As well as hand held operation for close range walkie talkie distances, with the simple addition of a low cost adapter you can have one in a vehicle or building utilising bigger & better antennas.

A usable prepper radio needs to be light, versatile, tough, easy to keep charged & not too power hungry, if all you have is a bulky base station it's going to be of limited use if you need to leave in a hurry.

Yes there are some great mobile rigs that also do the HF bands but they will cost you upwards of £400, but if vhf/uhf is all you need then the UV5R is impossible to beat for the price in my opinion.

Wf

[HBP]

no need for a TX unit

It sounds to me like you need a good scanner. Something that covers a wide frequency range and can do FM & AM.

For anything half decent I would imagine you would get much chnage from £100 if bought new and you could easily spend more

http://www.nevadaradio.co.uk/radio-scan ... ck=&brand=
http://www.radioworld.co.uk/handheld_scanner
http://www.thunderpole.co.uk/radio-scanners.html

A baofeng handheld will cover a good chunk of VHF and UHF frequencies but are not the fastest at scanning through the frequencies or memories. They work (I have a couple) but for listening I use a dedicated receiver.

A good resource for frequencies to listen to is http://ukradioscanning.com/viewforum.php?f=6

If you have any desire to transmit, a foundation amateur license is good thing to look at but if you just want to listen and gather intelligence, get a scanner. As with anything radio related, the better the antenna and the higher it is, the better it will work. A handheld will get you a lot but something attached to an antenna on the roof will be a huge improvement.

[Alloneword]

The trouble is nowadays there seems to be so little traffic out there, I have no intrest in becoming a ham, after my experience of those kinds of people is they think they are better then you just because they have a bit of paper, and i cannot be bothered with that crap, I'm looking for something that would give me information that would be handy to me in my situation if i had to bug out for the reasons in my original post here, i read the Baofeng can be programmed to listen to marine band, now that could be useful however would there comms reach to where i would be hanging out which is about 9 miles away as the crow flies, i suspect not as they would use just simple FM, and bearing in mind what the signal will have to get through in London.

I guess my first port of call should be what if anything will i be able to listen to , Plod is out, i think LFB are still on 78Mhz range in AM, no idea of LAS, Port of London Auto/RNLI i guess will be using marine band, anyone have any hard info on this kind of info

All1

[metatron]

I like the Yaesu VX6, as its built like a tank and is easy to mod to open up tx. They are fully submersible and have a useful emergency button. I've had mine for years and its been in salt water, if you want something solid I really can't fault it.

[Wingfoot]

In a city most handheld vhf/uhf radio's will struggle to get 9 miles unless you climb to the top of a high building or can access the local repeaters.

In any SHTF situation depending on the nature of it, some of these repeaters may not work once the power grid fails, some are independent of the grid, but most are not, but getting yourself up a tall building should not be that hard should you need to.

Any comms, is in my opinion preferable to none at all, your opinion of ham operators is perhaps a bit harsh & certainly not true for all of them, yes, there are some who do behave as you describe but in the main I have not found it to be the case around my location, perhaps I'm just lucky.

I did the foundation course primarily so that I could learn how to use & operate a radio while still remaining legal, its no use having the radio if you don't learn how to use it before you come to rely on it, so for that I needed to do the course & get a callsign.

I found the learning experience quite enjoyable, & I know a hell of a lot more about the subject now than I did at the beginning, & consider what I have learned to be a valuable skill should I ever need it.

Scanners are fine & can be very useful, but a radio that can also transmit is invaluable should you ever need to call for help, a scanner on its own cannot do that.

In any post SHTF situation where the phone & internet services might be disrupted, or worse, down for a very long time, I'm sure there would be a large numbers of people, licensed or otherwise making good use of any radio they can find, many UV-5R's have been sold within the pepper community already, youtube is full of preppers with Baofengs, so there should be someone out there after any event.

What I wanted to be able to do was know how to get the best out of the radio & antenna systems available to me, as well as the information on which frequencies I should concentrate on, which kind of brings me back to my earlier point, if you do the foundation & learn how to make good use of your radio before you need to rely on it your in a far better position than if you try to learn it all after the SHTF.

Just my opinion & of course your free to ignore it, good luck whatever path you choose.

Wf

[Alloneword]

They are fully submersible and have a useful emergency button. I've had mine for years and its been in salt water, if you want something solid I really can't fault it.

This is intresting as in my case it may well come into water, i can see some of the mods is easy enough to do I will take a closer look at it tonight.

Any comms, is in my opinion preferable to none at all, your opinion of ham operators is perhaps a bit harsh & certainly not true for all of them, yes, there are some who do behave as you describe but in the main I have not found it to be the case around my location, perhaps I'm just lucky.

Of course in any game you get good and bad and from my limited experience (4 ticket holders) 3 were a**holes and one was the best guy i have met in my life, maybe i mixed with the wrong crowd in those days.

I did the foundation course primarily so that I could learn how to use & operate a radio while still remaining legal, its no use having the radio if you don't learn how to use it before you come to rely on it, so for that I needed to do the course & get a callsign./quote]Talking of legal what use is a TX unit if a ticket holder will get in trouble if they have any comms with a pirate, that was my understanding of the law back in the days when i looked at it but were are talking 85-90.

I found the learning experience quite enjoyable, & I know a hell of a lot more about the subject now than I did at the beginning, & consider what I have learned to be a valuable skill should I ever need it.

I enjoy learing new stuff as well but don't enjoy people looking down on me just because i know less then them, after all we were all newbies once.

Scanners are fine & can be very useful, but a radio that can also transmit is invaluable should you ever need to call for help,

Again who would i call for help when all ticket holders would be in the doo doo.

In any post SHTF situation where the phone & internet services might be disrupted, or worse, down for a very long time, I'm sure there would be a large numbers of people, licensed or otherwise making good use of any radio they can find, many UV-5R's have been sold within the pepper community already, youtube is full of preppers with Baofengs, so there should be someone out there after any event.

Most of the vids i have seen are US based which is not much use to us over here, i have personal experience of the phone network going down on 7/7 when my wife was in the bus coming home when it was kicking off and it was a nightmare to get hold of here, so i know full well the cell network will shut down to a very large degree but at the same time sat phones are very cheap nowadays, £100-£300 will get a very decent unit and these were not touched on 7/7. One thing in the UV-5R favour is it's price it's cheap enough to buy a couple of units and not worry if the turn out to be door stops.

What I wanted to be able to do was know how to get the best out of the radio & antenna systems available to me, as well as the information on which frequencies I should concentrate on, which kind of brings me back to my earlier point, if you do the foundation & learn how to make good use of your radio before you need to rely on it your in a far better position than if you try to learn it all after the SHTF.

So lets take your case, how much did you know before you started foundation and then how long did it take you to pass and what is the test like, online/collage, multiple choice etc

Just my opinion & of course your free to ignore it, good luck whatever path you choose.

Why would i ignore it? you have your opinion and i have mine and others have there own, hopefully between everyone we can find some common ground to help everyone, ticket holder or not

All1