OK, it’s official: the Quansheng UV-K5 is the king of hackable ham radios — especially...

Another new toy, a Quansheng UK-K5(8). Size-wise it’s taller and heavier than the Baofeng UV5R and has a nicer display. The reason I got this, apart from the price is there is firmware available to enable a spectrum display among other things.

I’ve loaded this version: https://github.com/egzumer/uv-k5-firmware-custom/wiki. Loading was simple enough. There have been mentions that one needs to insert the programming cable very firmly but I found that my aftermarket Baofeng USB cable went in quite easily with a click. Once I had remembered you need to turn the radio on in program mode the firmware went in via the Edge browser in just a few seconds.

Other than that I have yet to use it on air and it has not yet been near a spectrum analyser so no idea how good or bad it is RF wise. There’s plenty of information out there already anyway. For me, like the UV5R it’s a handy little radio that won’t hurt too much if lost or damaged, but it is the available firmware that seals the deal.

Michael (DL2YMR) hat auf seinem YouTube-Kanal veröffentlicht indem er zeigt wie das Baofeng UV-5R mit Chirp programmiert wird. Bei dem Gerät handelt es sich um eines der meistverkauften Handfunkgeräte überhaupt. Die Bedienung des Geräts wird deutlich komfortabler, wenn man es personalisiert und nach eigenen Vorlieben programmiert. Michael erklärt was dazu benötigt wird und zeigt wie es funktioniert.