Baofeng UV5army

[Remington788]

Yeah...I guess I was looking to avoid doing the scouting thanks to someone who has already done so (;

There are just so many things to listen to and "The Pittsburgh Area" is a pretty wide range.
I use Chirp to program my UV5R. You can pretty much cut and past into a spreadsheet and then import it into Chirp and upload it to the radio.
I've got several spreadsheets saved with interesting channels from different places (ie one for home, one for where I hunt, one for where I vacation etc). I originally purchased it to listen to NASCAR drivers at Pocono, so I have a spreadsheet with their frequencies. I just upload the one I need when I need it.

Where I live, I can pick up Fire/EMS dispatch from 4 surrounding counties. I can get the security teams at the retirement community nearby (i know some residents there), security at various malls. I hear one local PD, but most departments are digital and I can't hear them. I can pick up quite a few repeaters. Some stuff seems interesting at first, but gets real boring so I just delete them from the spreadsheet (or set to skip in the scanning).

[Remington788]

For 11 bucks I just got a second battery charging cradle for my UV5r.
Nice thing about this one is that it is USB rather than a 110v plug. I can plug it in the car, or a portable battery or any other USB power source. I have a 10,000mAh battery thats about the size of a big iPhone. It should recharge the radio 5 times. Given how long the Baofeng battery lasts, just scanning channels 5 recharges would last a long time.

https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Deskt.../dp/B074DX1DX4

[Mr_Gixxer]

For 11 bucks I just got a second battery charging cradle for my UV5r.
Nice thing about this one is that it is USB rather than a 110v plug. I can plug it in the car, or a portable battery or any other USB power source. I have a 10,000mAh battery thats about the size of a big iPhone. It should recharge the radio 5 times. Given how long the Baofeng battery lasts, just scanning channels 5 recharges would last a long time.

https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Deskt.../dp/B074DX1DX4

Let us know if it actually works with a battery bank. I doubt you'll get 12v from the USB connection though. Same problem I ran into. I bought a similar cable that claimed to be a 12v converter to use with a solar powered battery bank and it doesn't work like this. After doing some more digging it seems that this is a problem for just about everyone and unless you were to make something custom there isn't a simple plug and play option for these.

[streaker69]

Let us know if it actually works with a battery bank. I doubt you'll get 12v from the USB connection though. Same problem I ran into. I bought a similar cable that claimed to be a 12v converter to use with a solar powered battery bank and it doesn't work like this. After doing some more digging it seems that this is a problem for just about everyone and unless you were to make something custom there isn't a simple plug and play option for these.

USB supplies 5v, you should never see 12v out of a common USB device.

[Mr_Gixxer]

USB supplies 5v, you should never see 12v out of a common USB device.

Hence the incompatibility. I really wanted to be able to run one of these radios directly from a power bank in a backpack or on tacticool gear or the least be able to charge spare batteries from one but there isn't a way I don't believe. Sucks because the extended batteries even have a barrel plug port on them for charging but I think even they need 12v.

[Walleye Hunter]

I looked on mine and I don't see a port in the radio or the battery for charging, is there one and I'm not seeing it? The charger puts out 10V but the battery is 7.4.

[Walleye Hunter]

OK, I did some looking around here. The cord for my Bose speaker fits the port for my Baofeng charger. The Bose transformer puts out 12 V and somewhere around here I have a cigarette lighter power cord for it. Would that work with the Baofeng extended battery with the port in it?

[Mr_Gixxer]

OK, I did some looking around here. The cord for my Bose speaker fits the port for my Baofeng charger. The Bose transformer puts out 12 V and somewhere around here I have a cigarette lighter power cord for it. Would that work with the Baofeng extended battery with the port in it?

I'm not really sure without busting out the multimeter. I don't even own one of those extended batteries with the barrel port either because they don't fit the UV5RA from what I've read. (Modification possible?) I would guess you would have to probe the barrel plug of the standard wall adapter for the charging base to know what the voltage is to know for certain. I'm guessing that barrel plug voltage would be what the extended battery needs at the input to work right. Then just match it to whatever setup you want to run and it should be good.

[Remington788]

OK, I did some looking around here. The cord for my Bose speaker fits the port for my Baofeng charger. The Bose transformer puts out 12 V and somewhere around here I have a cigarette lighter power cord for it. Would that work with the Baofeng extended battery with the port in it?

NO. The Baofeng charger is 10 volts.

CLARIFICATION

The transformer in the cord (both the wall model and the USB) output at 10v. 0.5A
The charging cradle steps it down further to 8v.
These are the figure written on the labels of the devices and I confirmed them with a meter.

[Remington788]

Let us know if it actually works with a battery bank. I doubt you'll get 12v from the USB connection though. Same problem I ran into. I bought a similar cable that claimed to be a 12v converter to use with a solar powered battery bank and it doesn't work like this. After doing some more digging it seems that this is a problem for just about everyone and unless you were to make something custom there isn't a simple plug and play option for these.

Radio battery completely dead (it took more than 24 hours on scanning to run out).
It is plugged into the 10,000mAh battery pack. The red charging light is on.
I will update the progress in a few hours.