I’ve just recently bought this FM Transceiver but unfortunately haven’t picked up any transmissions.What settings do i have to put it on & will it pick up the local Police Taxis & Emergency services & will it uncript the encrypted transmissions in it’s settings?
Hi, the Baofeng BF-F8+ is an amateur radio and needs to be programmed to specific frequencies you want to hear. This can be done either through programming software or directly from the keypad on the radio itself.
It is an analog radio, so if the local services in your area are using digital radio systems, you won’t pick them up.
Although it does include basic scan features, the BF-F8+ isn’t designed to perform as a radio scanner, and it is intended to scan specific channels and frequencies programmed into the radio for two way communication. It isn’t practical for use as a scanner because the scan rate is too slow to efficiently scan every single frequency step on each band.
If your purpose is to listen in on emergency services, it is best to purchase a radio scanner. It is also safer, since a scanner won’t transmit on those frequencies, possibly disrupting emergency communications and sending someone from the FCC to your door.
Apart from the services gone digital what will it pick up are taxis digital as well? I have R-CTCS & T-DCS At least I have the PMR446 frequencies plus I think these FM transceivers ranges are much further than PMR446.On the web I found frequencies for local police & taxis I put in the frequencies with no luck. The frequencies I get are I think 136MHZ-174MHZ & 400MHZ-520MHZ VHF & UHF
& wide & narrow band selection in it’s menu
I bought the Transceiver as another hobby when I’m not on my PS4 mind ?50 unfortunately have stopped paying to playing online ?50 to much quite happy when it was ?39.99 for 12 months.
Forgot to add how do I program frequencies into my Transceiver?
As stated in my earlier post, there two ways to program the radio, either from a computer with programming software or directly from the keypad of the radio itself.
The Baofeng BF-F8+ isn’t a scanner, per se. It’s a transceiver, which means it has the capability to transmit as well as receive on any given frequency you program into the radio. Before attempting to program the radio, it is important to know what the rules are for using it in your country. In my first post I mentioned the FCC, which is the regulatory agency in charge of the airwaves in the US, however I since noted that you are in the UK.
Each country has its own rules for using radio bands and frequencies, and each has different requirements for radio equipment. Before jumping into using the Baofeng BF-F8+ or any radio as a hobby, it is very important to learn the rules in your country or province. If not, you may find yourself in hot water fast.
The regulator in the UK is Ofcom. I highly recommend checking with them first before doing anything else with your radio.
In the UK, the legal situation currently is this. With an FM only radio, you can NOT use the PMR446 licence free band, as the radio is too powerful, and has a detachable antenna. You can listen to marine band, but that’s only useful near the coast. You can listen to the remaining taxis and businesses who have not gone digital, and you can listen to the shared business radio. You can apply for a licence to transmit - the basic licence for business is ?75 for 5 years, you share these frequencies with other users. If you want more privacy, you can have a technically assigned licence for ?75 a year. The only chat/family type facility is PMR446 - which your radio is not legal for. You can also become a radio ham with a bit of modest study.
So your radio is not really very useful.
You cannot listen to the emergency services in the UK - they use a TETRA based system, just under 400MHz, but it is encrypted, so nothing to hear. You can probably find a few shops, security guards and taxis at the moment - 165-170MHZ and 452-457MHz (ish) but more and more are going digital.
That’s pretty much the state of play here at the moment. We don’t have the USA’s family type radio licence with higher power - just the low power system