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> Besides, what's so interesting about 70cm/2m handhelds that makes getting an expensive one worth it anyway? APRS, GPS. I love my Kenwood TH-D74 for hiking ar
by twothamendment 9y ago
> Besides, what's so interesting about 70cm/2m handhelds that makes getting an expensive one worth it anyway?
APRS, GPS. I love my Kenwood TH-D74 for hiking around. Before I had it I used a Baofeng UV-82 with a http://www.mobilinkd.com/ http://www.mobilinkd.com/ TNC paired to my phone with Bluetooth. Smart phones suck up battery, so it is a lot nicer to have APRS all in one unit that doesn't depend on a smart phone.
Does everyone need the bells and whistles? No, but depending on what you want there are some nice features.
- masukomi 9y agoI upgraded to the Kenwood TH-D74 from the Baofeng for the simple reason that i wanted the ability to actually specify a frequency that i hadn't pre-programmed when out in the field. Doing that on a baofeng is nigh-impossible. the APRS, GPS, and D-Star are just icing on the cake. the Baofengs are cheap but absolutely suck when it comes to usability. With the Kenwood i can deploy to help our local CERT team, and not worry if they say "oh we changed the band plan... use this frequency" With the baofeng it was... "um... er.... well that sucks..." Admittedly the Kenwood doesn't have a beginner friendly price but I don't know of any handheld that lets you type in a random frequency without wanting to kill yourself that IS cheap. I'd love to hear about it if anyone knows of one.
- twothamendment 9y agoContrats on moving to the Kenwood club! I don't know which Baofeng you have, but my UV-82 is easy. Switch to frequency mode and type in a frequency. I'm sure some of their other ones are different and worse. Entering a repeater isn't as fun, but simplex is simple.