Baofeng UV-5RTP con't hit UHF Towers
I am looking for some direction on my 2 new Baofeng UV-5TRP radios before I decide to send them back for replacement. When I program them to hit the local repeaters I am able to reach VHF towers up to 25 km away from my location without a problem. That being said, I am not able to hit any UHF towers no matter how close I am to them or what I seem to try. I've factory re-set them, tried multiple UHF towers in my area, replaced the stock antenna with a Nagoya 771, drove under the actual tower and used my Yaesu VX-8DR to confirm the repeaters are in fact online. Is there anything I am missing or not aware of???
Another issue I am finding is that, when connected to VHF, I am getting feedback almost as if someone is repeatedly keying their PTT button. I tried to increase the squelch to 9 but this did not fix the problem. This only thing that seems to resolve it is to switch from wide to narrow band.
I know the only thing I've not tried differently is to have someone else program them to make sure it's not just me however I can hit all the VHF towers consistently. On the bright side, I've become really proficient at programming them using the keypad.
Any help or advice would be GREATLY appreciated.
With the Baofengs, the repeater offset has to be hand entered (the radio doesn't do it for you, like Kenwood, Yaesu or iCom radios do.) The offset for the 70cm UHF ham band is different than the offset for the 2m band. Are you using the correct offset for the UHF band (5.000MHz?)
Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it. To answer your questions, yes I am using 5.00Mhz. I am actually entering everything by hand on the keypad as follows.....Originally Posted by K6CPO
- Press VFO/MR button to ensure I am in Frequency Mode
- Press the band button to ensure I am in UHF mode
- Enter "Receive" of 444.3500 as per the "Repeater Book" reference
- Navigate to menu 13 - T-CTCS and enter 110.9 for the tone
- Navigate to menu 25 - SFT-D and enter +
- Navigate to menu 26 - Offset and enter 005.000
What is really confusing to me is the fact that it works flawlessly in 2m. Using the same process as above, I can hit VHF repeaters 22 KM away clearly with the stock antenna. When I switch to UHF.....crickets!!
Thinking it might be an issue with the actual radio's, I contacted the seller who immediately sent 2 new replacements at no cost 2 days later provided I promised to send the original ones back within three weeks. Again, going through the same process as above, I get the exact same results....VHF is fine, UHF is none existent. The reason I detailed the steps above as I now have to ask...is it me? I don't think so because I can access multiple 2m repeaters consistently but what are the odds of 2 new handhelds having the exact same issue?
I should also note, I can access both 2m VHF and 70cm UHF using the same process above (different menu options) with my Yaesu VX-8DR...
Last edited by Gsxrgrizz; Mon 16th Sep 2019 at 15:10.
Anyone else with any insight?
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Is the tower capable of repeating your signal, it may be digital only.
Search online for the callsign of the tower, you should find access details easy enough...
Baofeng UV-5RTP con't hit UHF Towers
Correct me if I am wrong but if it was digital I wouldn’t be able to access it with my Yaesu VX-8DR.....right?
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Not being totally familiar with Baofeng (I have one but don't use it) I took a shot in the dark and missed. Now I'm going to take another shot and see if might help.
I followed all your steps on my UV-5R and you seem to be doing everything correctly. Try this: Watch your screen when you transmit. If your programming is correct, you should see the frequency jump from 444.3500 to 449.3500. If it doesn't, you have not programmed the transmit frequency into the radio correctly. Check your frequency step (Menu item 1.) I like mine set at 5.0 KHz.
And, yes. If the repeater was digital you could access it with your VX-8, but all you would hear if someone responded would be static. Same with the UV-5R.
Last edited by K6CPO; Wed 18th Sep 2019 at 20:19.
Thanks for the reply and the advice. When I transmit, it is switching to the correct offset.
COMPLETELY frustrated, I took it to the local radio store to have them confirm I am not doing something wrong. While they basically blew me off, because I bought a replacement antenna from them I think they felt a little obligated to at least try. They tuned their radios and could not reach and UHF towers either so they said “maybe all the towers in our area are down from the recent lightening storms.” Not sure if that’s the case but at least it looks like maybe it’s not me???
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Will they talk to each other on a UHF simplex frequency?
Yes
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If the VX-8R worked, and the radios talked to each other confirming that the UHF side is working, then it could be incorrect tones, having the receive tone on when the repeaters don't output one, or having the frequencies reversed.
Thanks for taking the time to reply and try to help out with my issue. In the end, I think that, for some reason, the UHF towers in my area are simply just not on or receiving. The VX-8DR hit all the towers previously but now can’t despite the fact I’ve done nothing to change anything outside of charging it.
I was able to hit one UHF tower last week for about two days using both the Baofeng and the VX-8DR then it too disappeared again.
I also went to my local radio store (GPS central) who sells transceivers and has a huge antenna on top of their building but they too could not access any local UHF towers either....it just seems really strange to me.
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