As a newbie #hamradio explorer, decided to get something better than Baofeng (known as "standard").
Motivation:
- Explore new areas such as #aprs
- Better channel management
- Improved audio
- And most important - simply wanted to see how the "proper", "better" and full-featured radio compares to a Baofeng.
Since I usually do not know what I'm doing, didn't want to overspend. Ended up purchasing #anytone AT-D878UV II Plus V2 which arrived earlier this week!
Things I've learned during the first day with #anytone AT-D878UV II Plus V2:
1. Radio arrives with pre-configured region and limited frequency ranges. For example, "Amateur Europe" region allows listening PMR466 feequencies but prevents TX. Regions can be changed easily 🤫
2. Noticed some menu items were missing after fiddling with regions. Later I've found there are Professional and Amateur modes of the radio. Amateur has more options ;-) Initially I thought it is vice versa.
For some reason #baofeng can not break squelch of my #anytone on PMR466 frequencies. Only possible ways I've found are:
1. Completely turn off SQL level on AnyTone (not an option).
2. Configure PMR channels on AnyTone to use wide bandwith. Not the best option as well.
Baofeng bandwith is set to narrow but probably that setting does not do much.
Finally found time to set up #APRS on my #Anytone D878!
- First TX went out with the wrong callsign (CPS had reset mine).
- Second TX had a weird symbol.
- Third TX finally worked smoothly as expected.
Putting this nice APRS symbol lookup table for future reference: https://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2017/01/aprs-symbol-look-up-table.html
Couldn't sleep well tonight so I spent time to configure DMR on my #Anytone.
The first impression - setup is a bit confusing.
- There are digital contacts list, friends list, Contact/Talk groups list. Took a while to understand what are the differences and when to use one.
- Need to create a channel for each group, add channels to the zone, create a scan list for the zone (same as for analog setup).
Managed to talk with Parrot and hear local group chat. Impressed by sound quality!
pawka
vaidas