There have been some changes made here in the states referencing FRS & GMRS. Most BUBBLE PACK radio sets now are FRS radios (if they operate with 2w ERP or less). If they operate over 2w ERP, they are automatically seen as GMRS. Both FRS & GMRS now share all of the 22 main channels. An upgrade for FRS from the previous 14 channels. The FCC will not type certify any Part 95 radio as both FRS & GMRS. It's now an either/or. The radio is either FRS or GMRS. But not both. The full FRS vs GMRS comparisons as I know them: - FRS = 2w ERP or less (exception: ch8-ch14 are 1/2 watt only), GMRS = over 2w ERP (exception: ch8-ch14 are 1/2 watt only). - FRS = narrow FM only, GMRS = narrow or wide FM (user selectable ; exception: ch8-ch14 are narrow FM only). - FRS = fixed, non-removable antenna, GMRS = removable antennas - FRS = no repeater access, GMRS = repeater access on ch23-ch30 - FRS = no ID or license required, GMRS = mandatory ID and FCC License required To my knowledge, these are the main comparisons.
I found a set of these at a thrift shop and we use them at my workplace and they actually function just fine for our needs. The range and sound clarity is very good for cheap little walkie talkies. Much better than some several times more money.
Mine have a label on the bottom of the pack "T3 Radio EU Yellow" - I guess the "EU" refers to the 8Ch 446 version intended for the European market. Shame about the duff seller, could spoil the rep of a nice little 446 radio. Cheers.
Nobody even uses these frequencies in my town in uk. Been scanning for a few days propa deado. Mobile phone have killed the market for these. Back in the days these were propa banging.
They look ideal for small business like Nursing or Care Homes where staff are all over a building but need to keep in touch with each other. I am surprised Customs & Excise didn't pick up on this as they are quite hot on things that should not be coming into the country. We got a call from them once saying that they were diverting a shipment to a special warehouse for unpacking. No it wasn't drugs that they were looking for but 'beetles'... Well it was in Liverpool! The Radio Equipment Regulations 2017 SI No. 1206 gives force to the European Commission Radio Equipment Directive (Directive 2014/35/EU) and prescribe the conditions under which radio equipment may be placed on to the market. This came into force on 26th December 2017. Duty to take action in respect of radio equipment placed on the market which is considered not to be in conformity 15. (1) A manufacturer who considers, or has reason to believe, that radio equipment which they have placed on the market is not in conformity with Part 2, if appropriate, must immediately take the corrective measures necessary to- (a) bring the radio equipment into conformity, (b) withdraw the radio equipment, or (c) recall the radio equipment. Prohibition on placing on the market radio equipment which is not in conformity 20. An importer must not place radio equipment on the market unless it is in conformity with the essential requirements.
I was looking at these earlier, so it's great that you've done a video on them. Five of the call tones are animal sounds! They could make great little FRS scanners. I bet a lot of people are using these or others on the wrong band.
Nice to see a set of BF bubble packs! These would be great for getting kids into radio, at a price where it breaks... Who cares. FRS/GMRS bubble packs are huge here in the US... But many of them, even the crap ones have a huge PRICE. Which is why in my house we use regular Baofengs (UV5R, GT3WP and my kid uses an 888s)...i know I know "They're not Part 95..yada yada" But they work better than the bubble packs, and at a better price. Of course I am a "responsible" GMRS user (WITH a license) so my radios are programmed only within GMRS frequencies, and output levels. (except the dual banders which are also programmed for MURS (Unlicensed 2W VHF in the US) But these, at that kind of price would be a great, cheap, legal alternative to using 888s and such. Good for BF making the effort in this market. Well they do have 2 other radios the GMRSv1 and The MURSv1 which are basically modified uv82s. At TWICE the price.
-Free- Family Radio Service. And yes, they are easy to identify by the 22 channel configuration (fairly unique to FRS-GMRS hybrid radios). You shouldn't buy these anyway because the U.S. FCC regulation just changed allowing higher power outputs (0.5W to 2W), but new radios haven't been manufactured and certified yet.
I agree that 2 watts isn't that bad. The problem is, nobody makes 2 watt 22 FRS channel radios, yet. New rules only just passed to make this possible. MURS radios are the only consumer grade 2 watt Part95 HT radios on the market at present. The 22 channel UHF FRS/GMRS hybrid radios that are still on the market at present, only output 0.25 to 0.5 watts. That's easily only 1/3 to 1/4 the range of a 2 watt radio.
@@agvulpine hi! I’m in the states and looking for 2 watt devices. Are there any you could recommend that may have come out in the last 3 years? Thanks!
Yep, I've got the UK legal ones which cost a bit more (aprox £13.00 on ebay) Great fun little bits of kit which work really well. Get a couple for the kids and they can annoy the hell out of you with them on Christmas morning! lol :-)
Pity there not on legal UK frequencies as they would be Handy to try get youngster's interested in Radio Communications. I imagine it would just be a small tweak for Boefung to make UK versions.
It's not an easy modification.. first off the PLL has to be changed and tuned then the front end and TX end then you need a bigger memory to accommodate PMR446 channels. It's easier to READ the product description and SPECIFY which version or the radio you need
Actually... Three of the channels on there falls in the UK Fire Ground frequency range (1, 2 and 4 from what I can make out) and there's a strong possibility you could be interfering with firefighter to firefighter comms if they happen to be attending an incident near you. This will get you in very VERY deep doo doo.
The Fire Service were there first... That bit of band is allocated to The Home Office so the old analogue Police repeaters (some of which are kept as standbys) use those too. Whilst only one particular organization uses it at present, the scope's there for multiple agencies to flip back in the event of a major outage on Airwave (or its replacement when that comes in.)
Ringway Manchester doesn't matter about the Tone. 2 radios txing on the same frequency near each other will still interfere and important Comms could be missed.
Nice thing about U.S. radios is they're so prolific in other countries that most countries just give up and allow them. That's how 27 MHz Citizen's Band (CB) became popular and legalized world round.
Yes, sure. UK has its PMR and Australia has its own UHF CB. Not sure what Europe is doing in general, but there's certainly more buying options for American radios. They're cranked out in larger volumes and cheaper prices in my experience. And like always, within any dense urban areas the local options are very saturated while the illegal foreign radios are not. How much trouble you could potentially get into depends on your country's regime.
Well 11 meters US CB in the right conditions, can out preform the PMR, FRS/GMRS and Aussie UHF CB all day long since it is essentially operating in HF. Part of the 11 meter USCB band belonged to Ham radio (Channels 24 - 40) in the past.. The FCC took it away from the Hams and thus led to the hatred of CBers by Hams in the US. It's nothing to get on a 4 watt radio with a good antenna and talk skip across the US IF the atmospheric conditions allow it.. One thing I wish the FCC would do here is allow digital (DMR/TDMA) on GMRS.. Not the FRS though just for licensed GMRS users..
I want to share with all you a mod for this small radio, so that if you end up with USA or Chinese version ( like I did) instead of European PMR version, you can convert it to PMR version. Just to point out, documentation for this radio is AWFULL, you can't find schematic anywhere, MCU marking on board is etched, so you can't deduct which type it is, so I did a little blind-testing and researching there... From my experience, much more pricier HAM radios don't have different firmware versions for different area models, but there is just difference in connecting some jumpers on board or some additional component (resistor, capacitor...) to some pin, in order to unlock some specific options. In particular, what I noticed comparing picture of PMR version of BF-T3 and my USA FRS is the lack of resistor in parallel to capacitor on USA version. That resistor/capacitor is connected to pin 48 of MCU. Since there is no data at all about that value, I performed some testing and I found indeed that different values of that resistor switch unit to different "area" mode. So, I managed to unlock it to some modes which has 20 channels, 14 channels, even 70 channels and - finally PMR mode with 8 channels. So, in order to unlock PMR you need to solder resistor with value of approx 55-70kOhm. I found lower value for PMR mode to be approx 55kOhm ( if you go lower than that you will unlock some mode with 14ch, lower than 33kOhm will unlock mode with 20ch, 100kOhm will unlock mode with 70ch I think, I didn't test which are frequencies in those mode, since they are definitely not in PMR freq area) I'm attaching a picture with pointed out which resistor needs to bee soldered. prntscr.com/rsyzvz If I get some time later, I maybe record process of "unlocking" to PMR. :)
I have this radios www.amazon.co.uk/Robotime-Walkie-Talkies-Radio-Channels-2-Pack/dp/B07Y9V13XH/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pl_foot_top?ie=UTF8&th=1 Other model name : Goodtalkie T5 (mine) fccid.io/2ASV6-T5 Datasheet of mcu beken 4813 datasheetspdf.com/pdf/1302387/BEKEN/BK4813/1 I ask the manufacter on the Alibaba for setting to PMR versiın. They said switching to pmr buy software update or changing resistor. They didn't explain the details to me. Here is the photo prntscr.com/uryaf3 Can you help me about whicn resistance should change?
Its odd they did not tune them to PMR for the UK. Maybe they wanted more channels stored on the radio. Pity because for the price they are a total steal.
It's not really that odd. They will sell more U.S. radios by volume than PMR radios, so why bother making PMR radios if most of your customers are Americans with stricter customs.
We where gifted a set of these and they turned out to be programmed to US FRS frequencies, only realised when one broke and I got some UK legal PMR ones and they didn’t work with the ones we where gifted. I managed to work out the frequencies on my Boafeng GT3. Not good really as we could have been interfering with stuff unknowingly. Anyway I’m now studying for a UK ham licence.
9:55 500mW doesn't mean that the range is low and that it is unlikely to cause interference. It can and will cause interference. Best advise: Never use illegal transmitters, don't show on youtube that you have used them and don't recommend them. I had more than one perfectly fine contact with 500mW with a distance of > 100km to the repeater. There are nearby repeaters (less than 10km away) that work perfectly well with only 50mW. And if you sit directly below a repeater, even 1mW is enough to have the strongest signal on a repeater. Of course if you have two handheld radios on the ground with buildings, trees or hills in between, you will experience that the signal gets weak very fast. 500mW in the forest is sometimes not enough to reach someone else, especially without the use of repeaters. This results to wrong conclusions like "it is unlikely to cause interference" or it is "unlikely to get caught". Most commercial users use repeaters because this is the only way to get reliable communication over a bigger area. Those repeaters have different receive and transmit frequencies. The users of the illegal radios (probably children) won't even realize that they cause interference. And if the legitimate user of the frequency is serious about protecting his frequency, he might get professional help and than it is a matter of seconds to get the approximate location and the next thing is a car with a bunch of antennas on the roof searching for the street/house. The children will play with it at home too and not only in the forest. How fast and easy is direction finding? Commercial users just buy a bunch of direction finders from rohde schwarz, just search on www.rohde-schwarz.com for direction finders and read the specs. There are multiple methods of direction finding. One method uses the angle of arrival, they use a lot of antennas arranged in a circle and they use the phase-shift of the signal between the antennas to find the direction. Another method uses the time of arrival, there you have a GPS receiver on the direction finder that provides location information and timing accuracy better than 50ns (1ns = 30cm). The signal that should be located will be received at different times on different receivers, these times will be used to calculate where the source was. This is very precise and can catch interfering signals that are very short (much less then a second). If the interference comes from the same street, they will send a team with a direction finder mounted on a car and handheld direction finders to find the source in the house. The cost of the direction finding and the damage from the interference can be higher than the fine.
nice, yes I bought 888's and they were set to odd frequencies too.After this review that's another set of radio's that are going up in price.haha..Nice sound on the test
The radios with 22 channels are on the American frequencies, buying radios advertised in the UK with 8 channels are supposed to have the PMR frequency range :/
CAVEAT EMPTOR : BUYER BEWARE : There are TWO different versions of these radios available. The 22 channel units (as shown in the video) are made for the US market and are NOT legal for use in the UK, If You want to use BF-T3 radios in the UK You need to purchase the 8 channel version that operates on the UK PMR 446 allocated frequencies. :-)
Fair play to You for going ahead and producing a well made review of them even though they sent 'the wrong version'. Keep up the good work m8. 73 de Hairy Paul.
Look alot like the Motorola 5950's they made in China 20+ years ago. The 5950's had excellent range and were made out of a militairy grade plastic you rarely see today.
Lewis do these decode CTCSS tones in scan mode with tone set to zero, like the Motorola’s? I notice that they have similar call tones & Roger beep to the Motorola’s.
I'm intrigued that it might be possible to reprogram these if you have the single pin 2.5mm cable for the early series UV-3R. Also, KMart sell these legally in Australia as Anko brand with 80 channels for the Aussie CB band (which allows up to 5W). Ross VK1AAP
Just seen these on sale at The Reject Shop in Australia. I have emailed asking if they are legal but no response as yet. If you search RT-388 you can find loads of GMRS and PMR446 versions. There are many names including Retevis. Wonder if the aPMR ones are just the GMRS versions. GMRS radios could interfere with police in the state of Victoria
i have a set by Uniden Lewis , that are very similar and they work really well and never any one on but it will not stop me using it but lots of good info 73s
Hello Dear, I am regular viewer of ur channel, i want to ask is this required a license to use in INDIA ?? Is this available In Amazon.in want to buy this or should i buy Midland gt1000 which is better to use without license in India, pls let me know if this is legal in india both T3 nd Midland Thanks..
Be "careful" when buying them? How? How do you "be careful" when buying illegal radios? Perhaps you should look over your shoulder first - is that what you mean? Perhaps press the transmit button "carefully"? Do tell!
@@RingwayManchester The legal ones should not have removable antennas and many illegals don't have either so nowhere to connect an analyzer in most instances.
While I love watching your content, I'm a little disappointed in your dismissal of the chance of getting caught. Just because there's little chance of getting caught doesn't mean you should break the law. The RF spectrum is a shared resource, and as a licensed amateur radio operator, you should know and respect the importance of operating only on frequencies that you are licensed to operate on. Do you believe that non-amateurs should operate on ham frequencies? There's little chance they'll get caught. Anyway, enough soap-boxing. Other than this little issue, I love your content, and I look forward to more :)
Ian your point is valid but only to Radio Hams who are subject to the terms of their licence. Unfortunately as Lewis has pointed out these products are being sold to the General Public under the guise of being PMR446 & legal to use when really they are transmitting on the American GMRS channels. Consider this a radio watchdog programme alerting buyers to be aware. New Radio Equipment Regulations came into force in December 2017 and after August 2018 it will be an offence to sell these products in the UK. That is until such a time that it is decided (if ever) to legalise the American GMRS frequencies in the UK. rsgb.org/main/operating/amateur-radio-observation-service/
Given the price of them, they seem quite good and the audio was very respectable at the mile range test. Shame about the frequencies they operate on. 73
these radios and most pmr and FRS radios are shit, the Antennas are stubby, fixed and are not high gain. While of dubious legality , you can get a Baofeng HAM radio, get a custom antenna, and transmit at Higher Power in PMR 446 or FRS.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that these 'radios' are high end bits of kit, but given their price (£5 ?), they would definitely come under the heading of 'disposable' and might have a use to some people. I remember when I first got my Amateur Radio Licence in the early 1980's, that a typical hand held radio at the time was many hundreds of pounds (not sure what that would equate to, accounting for inflation etc., in today's money... but it would be a lot) so it's really great now that new hams have the opportunity to get these relatively inexpensive hand held's from the likes of Baofeng, for in most cases, about £20. I'd put these little radios into the 'fun bin' category and you might even buy them, so that you could dissemble them, to see what makes them tick? ;-)
If you buy it at a local shop, you can probably bring it back if it isn't PMR446. But then you won't get it for such a low price. Sending stuff back to china is most of the time more expensive than the item itself, so if it isn't PMR446 you lose. I searched a bit for this BF-T3 and found it with different brands (imurz, baofeng...) and they always wrote that it has 22 channels. PMR446 doesn't have 22 channels, it has only 16 channels. I'd be careful with this.
There have been some changes made here in the states referencing FRS & GMRS. Most BUBBLE PACK radio sets now are FRS radios (if they operate with 2w ERP or less). If they operate over 2w ERP, they are automatically seen as GMRS. Both FRS & GMRS now share all of the 22 main channels. An upgrade for FRS from the previous 14 channels. The FCC will not type certify any Part 95 radio as both FRS & GMRS. It's now an either/or. The radio is either FRS or GMRS. But not both. The full FRS vs GMRS comparisons as I know them:
- FRS = 2w ERP or less (exception: ch8-ch14 are 1/2 watt only), GMRS = over 2w ERP (exception: ch8-ch14 are 1/2 watt only).
- FRS = narrow FM only, GMRS = narrow or wide FM (user selectable ; exception: ch8-ch14 are narrow FM only).
- FRS = fixed, non-removable antenna, GMRS = removable antennas
- FRS = no repeater access, GMRS = repeater access on ch23-ch30
- FRS = no ID or license required, GMRS = mandatory ID and FCC License required
To my knowledge, these are the main comparisons.
WALKIE TALKIE BAOFENG BF T3 🔊🎤
I found a set of these at a thrift shop and we use them at my workplace and they actually function just fine for our needs. The range and sound clarity is very good for cheap little walkie talkies. Much better than some several times more money.
The ones I bought and tested are 8ch 446 with CTCSS and DCS - from a UK seller at £11.99.
Yeah I think the buyer I used is sending anything out!
Mine have a label on the bottom of the pack "T3 Radio EU Yellow" - I guess the "EU" refers to the 8Ch 446 version intended for the European market. Shame about the duff seller, could spoil the rep of a nice little 446 radio. Cheers.
"guys, don't use these radios, they are ILLEGAL,
now I'm going to test the range on them for you"
Get 2 uv-82 8w cost £42 for the 2 as far as being legal no one cares and no one has ever been prosecuted
Nobody even uses these frequencies in my town in uk. Been scanning for a few days propa deado. Mobile phone have killed the market for these. Back in the days these were propa banging.
I think in my country this has no problem at all since it look like a kids walkie talkie.
They look ideal for small business like Nursing or Care Homes where staff are all over a building but need to keep in touch with each other. I am surprised Customs & Excise didn't pick up on this as they are quite hot on things that should not be coming into the country. We got a call from them once saying that they were diverting a shipment to a special warehouse for unpacking. No it wasn't drugs that they were looking for but 'beetles'... Well it was in Liverpool!
The Radio Equipment Regulations 2017 SI No. 1206 gives force to the European Commission Radio Equipment Directive (Directive 2014/35/EU) and prescribe the conditions under which radio equipment may be placed on to the market. This came into force on 26th December 2017.
Duty to take action in respect of radio equipment placed on the market which is considered not to be in conformity
15. (1) A manufacturer who considers, or has reason to believe, that radio equipment which they have placed on the market is not in conformity with Part 2, if appropriate, must immediately take the corrective measures necessary to-
(a) bring the radio equipment into conformity,
(b) withdraw the radio equipment, or
(c) recall the radio equipment.
Prohibition on placing on the market radio equipment which is not in conformity
20. An importer must not place radio equipment on the market unless it is in conformity with the essential requirements.
Cheers Chris!
Thanks for the review. I may just pick up a pair of these.
I was looking at these earlier, so it's great that you've done a video on them. Five of the call tones are animal sounds!
They could make great little FRS scanners. I bet a lot of people are using these or others on the wrong band.
Nice to see a set of BF bubble packs!
These would be great for getting kids into radio, at a price where it breaks... Who cares. FRS/GMRS bubble packs are huge here in the US... But many of them, even the crap ones have a huge PRICE.
Which is why in my house we use regular Baofengs (UV5R, GT3WP and my kid uses an 888s)...i know I know "They're not Part 95..yada yada" But they work better than the bubble packs, and at a better price. Of course I am a "responsible" GMRS user (WITH a license) so my radios are programmed only within GMRS frequencies, and output levels. (except the dual banders which are also programmed for MURS (Unlicensed 2W VHF in the US)
But these, at that kind of price would be a great, cheap, legal alternative to using 888s and such.
Good for BF making the effort in this market. Well they do have 2 other radios the GMRSv1 and The MURSv1 which are basically modified uv82s. At TWICE the price.
-Free- Family Radio Service. And yes, they are easy to identify by the 22 channel configuration (fairly unique to FRS-GMRS hybrid radios). You shouldn't buy these anyway because the U.S. FCC regulation just changed allowing higher power outputs (0.5W to 2W), but new radios haven't been manufactured and certified yet.
Cheers for the info!
I agree that 2 watts isn't that bad. The problem is, nobody makes 2 watt 22 FRS channel radios, yet. New rules only just passed to make this possible. MURS radios are the only consumer grade 2 watt Part95 HT radios on the market at present.
The 22 channel UHF FRS/GMRS hybrid radios that are still on the market at present, only output 0.25 to 0.5 watts. That's easily only 1/3 to 1/4 the range of a 2 watt radio.
@@agvulpine hi! I’m in the states and looking for 2 watt devices. Are there any you could recommend that may have come out in the last 3 years? Thanks!
Yep, I've got the UK legal ones which cost a bit more (aprox £13.00 on ebay) Great fun little bits of kit which work really well. Get a couple for the kids and they can annoy the hell out of you with them on Christmas morning! lol :-)
Hello! Nice review thx
Is this baofen bf-t3 better than the WLN KD C1 ?
Pity there not on legal UK frequencies as they would be Handy to try get youngster's interested in Radio Communications. I imagine it would just be a small tweak for Boefung to make UK versions.
They do make them for 446 I've seen since this video, I guess my seller just sent me any old set out. Cheers steve
It's not an easy modification.. first off the PLL has to be changed and tuned then the front end and TX end then you need a bigger memory to accommodate PMR446 channels. It's easier to READ the product description and SPECIFY which version or the radio you need
Very thorough, the last one i watched on another channel was also great but didn't do a range check he he which was strange
Actually... Three of the channels on there falls in the UK Fire Ground frequency range (1, 2 and 4 from what I can make out) and there's a strong possibility you could be interfering with firefighter to firefighter comms if they happen to be attending an incident near you. This will get you in very VERY deep doo doo.
The Fire Service were there first... That bit of band is allocated to The Home Office so the old analogue Police repeaters (some of which are kept as standbys) use those too. Whilst only one particular organization uses it at present, the scope's there for multiple agencies to flip back in the event of a major outage on Airwave (or its replacement when that comes in.)
"Bah Laah Oodie Ell"!!! 😉
Not neccessarily as the fire handhelds use CTCSS so you'd have to be on the same tone, nevertheless a good point David cheers
Ringway Manchester doesn't matter about the Tone. 2 radios txing on the same frequency near each other will still interfere and important Comms could be missed.
Nice thing about U.S. radios is they're so prolific in other countries that most countries just give up and allow them. That's how 27 MHz Citizen's Band (CB) became popular and legalized world round.
but, what is wrong with UK or Europe citizens' band ? they have their own CB right ?
Yes, sure. UK has its PMR and Australia has its own UHF CB. Not sure what Europe is doing in general, but there's certainly more buying options for American radios. They're cranked out in larger volumes and cheaper prices in my experience. And like always, within any dense urban areas the local options are very saturated while the illegal foreign radios are not.
How much trouble you could potentially get into depends on your country's regime.
Well 11 meters US CB in the right conditions, can out preform the PMR, FRS/GMRS and Aussie UHF CB all day long since it is essentially operating in HF. Part of the 11 meter USCB band belonged to Ham radio (Channels 24 - 40) in the past.. The FCC took it away from the Hams and thus led to the hatred of CBers by Hams in the US.
It's nothing to get on a 4 watt radio with a good antenna and talk skip across the US IF the atmospheric conditions allow it..
One thing I wish the FCC would do here is allow digital (DMR/TDMA) on GMRS.. Not the FRS though just for licensed GMRS users..
For European use...No problem, just order the PMR 446 version of this bf-t3. Only 8ch but all legal.
you can also use pmr446 aboard ships cruising in Europe as well. but not in American ports.
I want to share with all you a mod for this small radio, so that if you end up with USA or Chinese version ( like I did) instead of European PMR version, you can convert it to PMR version.
Just to point out, documentation for this radio is AWFULL, you can't find schematic anywhere, MCU marking on board is etched, so you can't deduct which type it is, so I did a little blind-testing and researching there... From my experience, much more pricier HAM radios don't have different firmware versions for different area models, but there is just difference in connecting some jumpers on board or some additional component (resistor, capacitor...) to some pin, in order to unlock some specific options.
In particular, what I noticed comparing picture of PMR version of BF-T3 and my USA FRS is the lack of resistor in parallel to capacitor on USA version. That resistor/capacitor is connected to pin 48 of MCU.
Since there is no data at all about that value, I performed some testing and I found indeed that different values of that resistor switch unit to different "area" mode. So, I managed to unlock it to some modes which has 20 channels, 14 channels, even 70 channels and - finally PMR mode with 8 channels.
So, in order to unlock PMR you need to solder resistor with value of approx 55-70kOhm. I found lower value for PMR mode to be approx 55kOhm ( if you go lower than that you will unlock some mode with 14ch, lower than 33kOhm will unlock mode with 20ch, 100kOhm will unlock mode with 70ch I think, I didn't test which are frequencies in those mode, since they are definitely not in PMR freq area)
I'm attaching a picture with pointed out which resistor needs to bee soldered.
prntscr.com/rsyzvz
If I get some time later, I maybe record process of "unlocking" to PMR. :)
I have this radios www.amazon.co.uk/Robotime-Walkie-Talkies-Radio-Channels-2-Pack/dp/B07Y9V13XH/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pl_foot_top?ie=UTF8&th=1
Other model name : Goodtalkie T5 (mine) fccid.io/2ASV6-T5
Datasheet of mcu beken 4813 datasheetspdf.com/pdf/1302387/BEKEN/BK4813/1
I ask the manufacter on the Alibaba for setting to PMR versiın. They said switching to pmr buy software update or changing resistor. They didn't explain the details to me.
Here is the photo prntscr.com/uryaf3
Can you help me about whicn resistance should change?
Thank you for sharing this! I was looking for this info. I needed to convert my radios from PMR to FRS, de-soldering resistor worked!
Thanks a lot for sharing! I have tried soldering 56K ohm resistor between pin 48 and ground and it swithced to 8 channel PMR
Its odd they did not tune them to PMR for the UK. Maybe they wanted more channels stored on the radio. Pity because for the price they are a total steal.
It's not really that odd. They will sell more U.S. radios by volume than PMR radios, so why bother making PMR radios if most of your customers are Americans with stricter customs.
They do make a UK set bud I've learnt since, I think my seller just sent me a random set
Originally they were intended for the US market only, later version were made for the UK/EU markets
I would have liked a range test handheld to handheld as this would be their most common use and not a range test to a base station again!
Thank you so much!
We where gifted a set of these and they turned out to be programmed to US FRS frequencies, only realised when one broke and I got some UK legal PMR ones and they didn’t work with the ones we where gifted. I managed to work out the frequencies on my Boafeng GT3. Not good really as we could have been interfering with stuff unknowingly. Anyway I’m now studying for a UK ham licence.
Yes, not legal here in Australia either. With eBay I am sure there are many PMR, FRS and GMRS radios in use here though.
Except if you bought them as Anko branded 80 channels from KMart. VK1AAP
9:55 500mW doesn't mean that the range is low and that it is unlikely to cause interference. It can and will cause interference.
Best advise: Never use illegal transmitters, don't show on youtube that you have used them and don't recommend them.
I had more than one perfectly fine contact with 500mW with a distance of > 100km to the repeater. There are nearby repeaters (less than 10km away) that work perfectly well with only 50mW. And if you sit directly below a repeater, even 1mW is enough to have the strongest signal on a repeater.
Of course if you have two handheld radios on the ground with buildings, trees or hills in between, you will experience that the signal gets weak very fast. 500mW in the forest is sometimes not enough to reach someone else, especially without the use of repeaters. This results to wrong conclusions like "it is unlikely to cause interference" or it is "unlikely to get caught".
Most commercial users use repeaters because this is the only way to get reliable communication over a bigger area. Those repeaters have different receive and transmit frequencies. The users of the illegal radios (probably children) won't even realize that they cause interference. And if the legitimate user of the frequency is serious about protecting his frequency, he might get professional help and than it is a matter of seconds to get the approximate location and the next thing is a car with a bunch of antennas on the roof searching for the street/house. The children will play with it at home too and not only in the forest.
How fast and easy is direction finding? Commercial users just buy a bunch of direction finders from rohde schwarz, just search on www.rohde-schwarz.com for direction finders and read the specs. There are multiple methods of direction finding. One method uses the angle of arrival, they use a lot of antennas arranged in a circle and they use the phase-shift of the signal between the antennas to find the direction. Another method uses the time of arrival, there you have a GPS receiver on the direction finder that provides location information and timing accuracy better than 50ns (1ns = 30cm). The signal that should be located will be received at different times on different receivers, these times will be used to calculate where the source was. This is very precise and can catch interfering signals that are very short (much less then a second). If the interference comes from the same street, they will send a team with a direction finder mounted on a car and handheld direction finders to find the source in the house. The cost of the direction finding and the damage from the interference can be higher than the fine.
nice, yes I bought 888's and they were set to odd frequencies too.After this review that's another set of radio's that are going up in price.haha..Nice sound on the test
888s are not legal for PMR use. No fixed antenna, and too powerful
Haha cheers!
The radios with 22 channels are on the American frequencies, buying radios advertised in the UK with 8 channels are supposed to have the PMR frequency range :/
Yeah it's a minefield cause they're just sending any variant out as in my care
There are some of these same models being sold on eBay as PMR 446. Could it be there are some on legal frequencies?
how can i pair baofeng bf-t3 with baofeng bf-h7?
Not bad looking radios especially for the price. Too bad you can't legally use them in the UK.
CAVEAT EMPTOR : BUYER BEWARE : There are TWO different versions of these radios available. The 22 channel units (as shown in the video) are made for the US market and are NOT legal for use in the UK, If You want to use BF-T3 radios in the UK You need to purchase the 8 channel version that operates on the UK PMR 446 allocated frequencies. :-)
My seller just sent me a random set despite advertising them as pmr 446
Fair play to You for going ahead and producing a well made review of them even though they sent 'the wrong version'. Keep up the good work m8. 73 de Hairy Paul.
How do record yourself from 1 mile away ?
With a receiver at home connected to a recording device (i.e. soundcard of the computer). ;)
Ok thanks
Close, my radio has a build in recorder to make things easier
Look alot like the Motorola 5950's they made in China 20+ years ago. The 5950's had excellent range and were made out of a militairy grade plastic you rarely see today.
Yeah I agree! Cheers
Lewis do these decode CTCSS tones in scan mode with tone set to zero, like the Motorola’s? I notice that they have similar call tones & Roger beep to the Motorola’s.
No they don't do that
Ringway Manchester cheers mate. Mind you at that price they seem excellent value for money.
Seen the video ukcbtv uploaded with similar radios I'm lucky I haven't fallen for that yet....
Yeah he managed to get PMR 446 ones luckily
I'm intrigued that it might be possible to reprogram these if you have the single pin 2.5mm cable for the early series UV-3R. Also, KMart sell these legally in Australia as Anko brand with 80 channels for the Aussie CB band (which allows up to 5W). Ross VK1AAP
Just seen these on sale at The Reject Shop in Australia. I have emailed asking if they are legal but no response as yet. If you search RT-388 you can find loads of GMRS and PMR446 versions. There are many names including Retevis. Wonder if the aPMR ones are just the GMRS versions. GMRS radios could interfere with police in the state of Victoria
Alguno habla español que ve este video ?
Do baofeng t3 can connect with normal HT
The clip on the back isn't sliding of even though I'm pushing the clip back! Some help???
Push the clip in the center upward then slide it
i have a set by Uniden Lewis , that are very similar and they work really well and never any one on but it will not stop me using it but lots of good info 73s
Nice ones i got some quite good four money take care mark from loughbrough leicestershire ct2674
Cheers as always for commenting Mark!
looks like in every way as my blackfins
How do u charge it
Hello Dear, I am regular viewer of ur channel, i want to ask is this required a license to use in INDIA ?? Is this available In Amazon.in want to buy this or should i buy Midland gt1000 which is better to use without license in India, pls let me know if this is legal in india both T3 nd Midland Thanks..
Be "careful" when buying them? How? How do you "be careful" when buying illegal radios? Perhaps you should look over your shoulder first - is that what you mean? Perhaps press the transmit button "carefully"? Do tell!
Hey could you do a tutorial about the different values on an antenna analyzer and the difference between it an a VNA?
I don't have one sorry
@@RingwayManchester The legal ones should not have removable antennas and many illegals don't have either so nowhere to connect an analyzer in most instances.
While I love watching your content, I'm a little disappointed in your dismissal of the chance of getting caught. Just because there's little chance of getting caught doesn't mean you should break the law. The RF spectrum is a shared resource, and as a licensed amateur radio operator, you should know and respect the importance of operating only on frequencies that you are licensed to operate on. Do you believe that non-amateurs should operate on ham frequencies? There's little chance they'll get caught.
Anyway, enough soap-boxing. Other than this little issue, I love your content, and I look forward to more :)
Ian your point is valid but only to Radio Hams who are subject to the terms of their licence. Unfortunately as Lewis has pointed out these products are being sold to the General Public under the guise of being PMR446 & legal to use when really they are transmitting on the American GMRS channels. Consider this a radio watchdog programme alerting buyers to be aware. New Radio Equipment Regulations came into force in December 2017 and after August 2018 it will be an offence to sell these products in the UK. That is until such a time that it is decided (if ever) to legalise the American GMRS frequencies in the UK.
rsgb.org/main/operating/amateur-radio-observation-service/
Lol what a nerd
why can't i find your zello channel Lewis.? all i can find is a RMCOMM channel !
try rmcomms in lower case mate
Given the price of them, they seem quite good and the audio was very respectable at the mile range test. Shame about the frequencies they operate on. 73
these radios and most pmr and FRS radios are shit, the Antennas are stubby, fixed and are not high gain. While of dubious legality , you can get a Baofeng HAM radio, get a custom antenna, and transmit at Higher Power in PMR 446 or FRS.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that these 'radios' are high end bits of kit, but given their price (£5 ?), they would definitely come under the heading of 'disposable' and might have a use to some people.
I remember when I first got my Amateur Radio Licence in the early 1980's, that a typical hand held radio at the time was many hundreds of pounds (not sure what that would equate to, accounting for inflation etc., in today's money... but it would be a lot) so it's really great now that new hams have the opportunity to get these relatively inexpensive hand held's from the likes of Baofeng, for in most cases, about £20.
I'd put these little radios into the 'fun bin' category and you might even buy them, so that you could dissemble them, to see what makes them tick? ;-)
Yeah not too bad are they mate!
Nope, thats not correct either Lewis.Only RMCOMM comes up
It's definitely rmcomms mate. I get people adding me on it daily
just can't find it only get what ive said befire
What frequency do they run on of not 446 ?
Aeron I did discuss this in the video mate
Range
Hey, check out your chat area in Facebook...asked ya for some help but prefer it in private chat. No big hurry..just when you get some time. Thanks!!
I'll check it out Roy :)
This radio looks good but I think location of ptt buton isn't good. I will buy pair for my kids.
Don't buy them, if the use of them isn't legal in your country. If they are legal, have fun with them. :)
zvpunry I live in Poland (Europe) and I can use all PMR 446MHZ. Thank for Your comment. 73!
But the shown device used FRS/GMRS frequencies. You can of course use PMR446, if it really is PMR446 and not just a lie from some chinese seller.
zvpunry I'm sure that it is be OK. I seen this model in local shop with ham radios.
If you buy it at a local shop, you can probably bring it back if it isn't PMR446. But then you won't get it for such a low price. Sending stuff back to china is most of the time more expensive than the item itself, so if it isn't PMR446 you lose.
I searched a bit for this BF-T3 and found it with different brands (imurz, baofeng...) and they always wrote that it has 22 channels. PMR446 doesn't have 22 channels, it has only 16 channels. I'd be careful with this.
Walkie talkie legal.
Brondi fx-10 clone
giveaway please :)
Errrrrrrrr no!