As of February 2025, I am a licensed Foundation amateur in the UK. My callsign is M7XXI, and if you wish to QSL, see the contact me page. I am interested in the 2m and 70cm bands, and outside of amateur I do a lot of meshtastic (34cm) and PMR446 (67cm) working too.
As I am just getting started, I am using a Baofeng UV5RM. They’re not amazing by any stretch, but they get you on the air, and I can hear myself through the local SDR so things must be working!
I’m using a standard PMR446 radio to remain within the power and type compliance of the 446 bands. I only have TX access to the first 8 channels, but by using the Baofeng radio in recieve only, I can RX on all 16 channels. Generally when making 446 contacts, I use the Baofeng in recieve as it has a much better reciever than my 446 radio. This, and a lot of height from whatever hill I happen to be standing on seems to make making contacts significantly easier.
I’m using a Heltec V3 board. It’s fantastic, and very fun to use, and I’ve made some decent contacts in Edinburgh. I’m amazed with the range, I can hit Glasgow very easily using other people’s more powerful antennae thanks to the meshed nature of the network.
Tagged as: utility-pages radio