Boafeng uv5r programing

And I no that there no swl but apart of my membership with irts short wavy listiner is on my certificate but that do meen anything on the I have license

We need to be clear on a couple of points. Baofeng Radios are perfectly legal in the EU, and the UK because they do have CE approval and the specification meets the minimum requirements laid down by the member states. It is NOT approved (although there is of course no actual type approval ) for use on the EU/UK PMR446 licence free system because of the high power and detachable antenna. It is perfectly licensable on the business bands and of course ham radio. With the CE marking it also seems to meet the standards approval for use on Marine Band, but frequency stability and spurious emissions are pretty good really, and receiver selectivity, which they’re rubbish at, doesn’t seem to cause an issue.

… and finally to repeat this because it keeps returning - in the EU and the UK there is no such thing as a licence for radio receivers, and hasn’t been since the 60’s. There are rules on the reception of radio transmissions you are not authorised to receive - but that has nothing to do with licences, and the strict understanding of the actual law is simple. You mustn’t listen to things you are not authorised to receive - which in practice means broadcast and amateur transmissions only. However, if you do accidentally receive something, you are not allowed to pass this information on. A typical law over here - you must NOT do something, but if you do … Sounds like Covid advice!

So short wave listening has never been a licensable activity in this part of the world, apart from in WW2, when radio sets were confiscated for the duration. It means that listening to aircraft is a popular hobby but unofficially legal, or legally unofficial - and this is why people who stream control tower traffic from say Heathrow, get the authorities closing them down - you are passing on information you should not actually have. Keep it to yourself, and they don’t take action.

NOBODY in EU and the UK has a short wave listening licence. There simply is no need for such a system. You need a licence for every transmitting band you use with the exception of licence exempt equipment - PMR446, wireless microphones in channel 70 and home network systems that use radio in a number of bands, 2.4GHz for example.

There is no point anyone saying there are exceptions here - there are not, and the law remains unchanged for quite a while now. OFCOM, and the Irish version offer licences on-line for practically every use you can think of. If the band you want is not listed, it is unavailable, or simply not required, but their websites detail all of these. Licences are issues for transmitting. Not receiving.

What has happened here is simple misunderstanding - National societies offer members many benefits, but they cannot issue licences that don’t exist. What they can do is formalise things, by issuing numbers so that you can be identified. Then you ‘exist’, people know about you, and you are part of the system. If you don’t want to be visible, you can happily install loads of expensive equipment to listen to radio transmissions from almost anywhere in the world, and you don’t need permission or a licence to do it. If you live next door to something like GCHQ, you can expect a polite knock on the door - but unless they discover you are doing something illegal, they will go away.

Hi and thanks again for all the information you have given me over the last few days.ya I no the boafeng uv5r are legal in the EU that why I getting rid of the one I have and going with a scanner till I get my license it’s a lot more safeer and I only no a small few things about the 446 license free frequncey and I now no that there is no swl license and Ian taken on board everything you are telling me about this and agen this is all new to me I am lurning everyday about this so thanks again for your time help me with undstand this and the way this works thanks

It’s easy to get things wrong. I’ve had a marine licence for years but need a supply and demonstration licence, so I’ve decided to do the exam on Monday at a local test centre. Since I last looked there are lots of rules and procedures for the digital identification modes and I’ve been very wary of that big red button. Hopefully the course will set my mind at rest and give me the chance to try a few distress calls on their equipment. I did think about using my radios and a dummy load, but as I’m close to the coastguard antennas, it seemed just too risky. The notion of a helicopter landing on the car park was just too risky.

Hi paulears I downloaded application for marine licence and there looking for doucation for a vessel what do I say to that question on the application from

In Ireland you need to apply for a short range operators certificate (SRC) The one you were looking at is sort of what the Titanic would have applied for now - ships that need HF radio and a different class of VHF kit. This SRC is broadly similar to what we have in the UK - the licence is issued to the person, not the vessel - so proper ships who would have different radio operators get the ship installation licence and any qualified marine radio officer can work it. That covers HF, VHF and satellite communications. The SRC covers the individual with their small boat radio or portable. MMSI numbers for bigger vessels stay with that boat for years. For small craft they can be cancelled or transferred to new owners.official page here Unlike in the UK, you may need to register as a seafarer. This is required as they need your number and you need to do the course. The Irish Sailing organisation have useful information here but the actual courses are run by the Department of Transport, Tourism & Sport.

I passed! It was actually tougher than I thought. Marks were lost or gained for making sure things like Mayday info was in the right format and the right order, and that had to be done from memory. You also had to decide which scenario matched the circumstance so you used Mayday rather than Pan Pan for example. DSC was also quite a focus point and you were required to send Maydays with DSC and then by voice. The complications of Mayday relay made us think and there were even trick questions about which DSC mode would you use for a certain event, and the correct answer was you wouldn’t! You had to remember working channel numbers, the purposes and use of channel 15 and 17 and the recent changes, and calculate the likely working distance of a sailing vessel talking to an identical vessel with antenna height of 16m, using a formula. There was even a question about who to ask for radio checks. The answer was interesting - and while coastguard was acceptable, it was an ‘if all fails’ answer. We had to know a little about SART beacons and EPIRBS. One big feature was making sure everyone knows marine is for water and not land. Lat/long and bearing and distance for location were also covered. As all vessels can now only have DSC radios - the way they work for calling people by the MMI number was quite important, and the other thing they were hot on was using low power first, only going to high when it was necessary. I did, to be honest, think it would be a doddle, but it wasn’t. It was serious head scratching and while it was presented very well, it was not as easy as I thought, and one of the guys on the course had a lot of problems getting his maydays structured properly - and they were even timed to make sure our speed was just right. The examiner made sure the questions were phrased properly so we all understood. The first part of the exam was practical - using the radios, then he fired questions at us one by one, then we had the exam paper. First section was free writing about the structure of messages and then part B was multiple choice. I suspect other countries do the same system. We only had one bit about duplex channels - he got one of us to call the other on channel 80 - which doesn’t work as it’s the marina channel and boats cannot hear each other. For info, we used Icom Marine sets that are modified to have a tiny output so while they can talk to each other, they cannot be heard out of the room. The thing that made me surprised was that if you press the emergency button by mistake, the only way to stop it is turn them off, then turn them on again and you MUST then call the coastguard on ch 16 who will have a chat with you and make sure you know you must not press this button to test them!

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Congratulations! Sounds like it was quite an exam.

Thanks Rick, I think the vital thing here is that the exam is not, as I thought, a walkover. If Corkyy RadioKid want to do a marine band licence to get the marine safety he wants, it’s going to be tough. The trainer said they had never failed to get people through, but some people needed a lot more classroom time to get there. For me, the bits about frequency, antennas and the equipment were easy, but the rules and regs were very specific. Simple stuff like ‘Imminent and Grave danger’ - you have to decide what constitutes this. Some are pretty obvious - like running aground. It relates to people, vessels and aircraft, so being stuck on a sand bank is not a Mayday situation, you just need to reflect on the next tide. Losing your steering in open sea is not a Mayday, but doing it in the 22 miles of really busy shipping between Dover and Calais could be! I actually learned quite a lot of useful info.

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Well done paulers It’s sounds quite hard to do I say it long exam as well