I’m writing this manual as a reminder for me and for other amateur radio friends, who are underwhelmed by the Baofeng user manual. There is no special order, since I write about the steps I need.

Syntax:

  • Buttons are writen as code in square brackets as printed on the buttons.
  • When a number is to be pressed the secondary function can be ommited
  • Buttons that are to be pressed after each other are seperated with a “+” symbol.
  • Exception: When multiple number buttons are to be pressed, the buttons are printed as one.
  • Menu settings are written as code with curly braces, preceded by its number.

Examples:

  • [MENU]
  • [4 VOX] can be printed as [4]
  • Buttons [2]+[3] are printed as [23]
  • {0 - SQL}

How to enter a Menu:

Example: Enter {8 - BEEP}

  1. Press [MENU]
  2. Press [8] or press the arrow buttons to seek for {8 - BEEP}. The Number is printed on the far right of the screen.
  3. Press [MENU] to activate the options in the second row.
  4. Use the arrow keys (in some menues the number keys can also be pressed) to make your choice.
  5. press [MENU] to confrm your choice. You should now be able to choose a different menu or exit with [EXIT]

… that I use1

Menu Function Description Available settings
0 SQL Squelch level 0-9
7 TDR Dual watch/dual reception ON/OFF
9 TOT Transmission timer 15-600seconds
10 R-DCS Reception Digital Coded Squelch OFF/D023N..D754I
11 R-CTS Reception Continuous Tone Coded Squelch 67.0Hz..254.1Hz
12 T-DCS Transmission Digital Coded Squelch OFF/D023N..D754I
13 T-CTS Transmission Continuous Tone Coded Squelch 67.0Hz..254.1Hz
14 VOICE Voice prompt OFF/ON
18 SC-REV Scan resume method TO/CO/SE
25 SFT-D Direction of frequency shift OFF/+/-
26 OFFSET Frequency shift 00.000..69.990
27 MEMCH Stored in memory channels 000..127
27 DELCH Delete the memory channels 000..127

18: SC-REV (Scan resume method):

  • CO: Scanning stops, when signal is detected and resumes after the signal ends.
  • SE: Scanning stops, when signal is detected.
  • TO: Scanning stops, when signal is detected and resumes after preset time.

Modes

There are two modes called “Channel Mode” and “VFO”2. Channel mode is for previously saved channels.

VFO is for when you want to input frequencies directly. This is what I did at the beginning. Later I mainly used it to set frequencies to save to channels.

Switching modes:

To switch between modes you need to hold the [MENU] while turning your device on. The Voice prompt will pronounce either “Channel mode” or “Frequency mode”, the latter being “VFO”.

Saving Frequencies to a channel

Tip: When in Channel mode decide which channel you’d like to use. Then switch to Frequency mode.

  1. Set Frequency with the keypad
  2. Optionally set {25 - SFT-D} and {26 - OFFSET}
  3. Optionally set a) {11 - R-CTS} and {13 - T-CTS} or b) {10 - R-DCS} and {12 - T-DCS}.
  4. Save to free channel via {27 - MEMCH}

If you activated {14-VOICE} (= Voice prompt), you should be hearing “recieving memory”.

Sidenotes:

  • If channel is not free, delete with {28 - DELCH}, otherwise optional settings will not be written
  • When saving to a non empty channel, channel numbers are preceded by “CH-“.

Deleting Channels

  1. Enter {28 - DELCH}
  2. Choose channel number via keypad or arrow keys.
    If the channel number is preceded by “CH-“, the channel is not empty.
  3. Confirm with [MENU].

If you activated {14-VOICE} (= Voice prompt), you should be hearing “confirm”.

Using the Dual Watch feature

  1. Choose first channel/frequency
  2. Press [EXIT] to switch to second operation channel/frequency.
    You should see that the arrow on the left hand side has switched.
  3. Choose second channel/frequency
  4. Turn {7 - TDR} to “ON”
  5. Confirm with [MENU]
  6. Press [EXIT] to leave the Menu.

You should be seeing an “S” printed on the top part of your screen.

Footnotes:

  1. For more options see hamencounters.com ↩

  2. VFO stands for Variable frequency Oszillator. ↩