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The Most Hackable Handheld Ham Radio Yet - IEEE Spectrum

spectrum.ieee.org · 1,048 words · saved by 1 readers

All right, confession time. I don’t use my handheld ham radio for much more than eavesdropping on the subway dispatcher when my train rumbles to a mysterious halt in a dark tunnel. But even I couldn’t help but hear the buzz surrounding a new handheld, Quansheng’s UV-K5. It caught my attention in part because for over a decade, Baofeng has been the name in Chinese handhelds. In 2012 Baofeng made waves with its UV-5R radio, upending the sleepy handheld-transceiver market. Prior to the 5R, the price tag of the cheapest VHF/UHF handheld was a little north of US $100. The 5R sold for a quarter to a third of that. Hams groused about the 5R’s so-so technical performance—and then bought a couple anyway, so they’d always have a radio in their car or workplace. Now it’s Quansheng that’s making a splash. The UV-K5, released last year, might be the most hackable handheld ever, with a small army of dedicated hams adding a raft of software-based improvements and new features. I had to have one, and

All right, confession time. I don’t use my handheld ham radio for much more than eavesdropping on the subway dispatcher when my train rumbles to a mysterious halt in a dark tunnel. But even I couldn’t help but hear the buzz surrounding a new handheld, Quansheng’s UV-K5. It caught my attention in part because for over a decade, Baofeng has been the name in Chinese handhelds. In 2012 Baofeng made waves with its UV-5R radio, upending the sleepy handheld-transceiver market. Prior to the 5R, the price tag of the cheapest VHF/UHF handheld was a little north of US $100. The 5R sold for a quarter…

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