Black ABBREE Better Than Telescopic CB

From using both the black whip and silver telescopic antennas by ABBREE for 27MHz UK CB for some time, I can say without a doubt that in my experience the black whip is better overall. It sounds better and picks up signals from further away. One example is them both picking up American CB chatter from the UK and comparing both antennas. The black whip seems to pick up the repeater better and can pick it up those signals much clearer than the silver telescopic. And I've tried the telescopic at all lengths, fully extended [it's over 50 inches!], half way, fully retracted etc, and it still couldn't best the black whip.

ABBREE Silver Telescopic | ABBREE Black Whip

It's the same result with the local CB signals in my area. I have compared both antennas and the black whip is just better. Clearer sound, can pick up feint signals better etc. Don't get me wrong, the silver telescopic is a good antenna @ 27MHz, not bad at all. But in comparison to the black whip, it gets beat every time. This is just my honest findings and opinion. I have no axe to grind by saying this. I know many people love the silver telescopic. When purchasing, I bought the black whip first, and bought the silver telescopic a few months after because I thought it would be much better than the black whip. But I was wrong.

I personally think this could come down to the materials the antennas are made from. Any telescopic I've ever owned has always been good, but always more hissy and had less signal clarity than my other antennas that are not fully metal. Perhaps its the cheap metal used. I mean, what are they made of, thin aluminium? Vs the plastic coated antennas that have a mix of different metals inside, such as copper, more solid metals etc. Telescopic antenna's are also hollow inside, so maybe that also has something to do with it. I'm no expert, but that's what it seems like.

+W- Power Setting On The Baofeng 1701

The +W- setting On the Baofeng 1701 DMR radio is the highest transmit power setting available, and its only meant to be used in an emergency as I think it can damage the radio if used too much. Problem is, if messing around with the radio it's quite easy to accidently press the right [or wrong] buttons to enable this setting. I've done it several times now. The second problem is how hard it is to reverse the +W- setting back to a normal 1 Watt, 5 Watt or whatever you want to use. Or at least it seems really hard when you don't know what to press. 

I was there pressing every button combination under the sun and still couldn't figure out how to lower the power. It's actually really easy when figured out. Please note: this is for radios that have OpenGD77 installed. The process will probably be a little different with the stock software.

How to reverse the +W-  power setting On The Baofeng 1701 [with OpenGD77]

Press and hold down the lowest button on the side of the radio. While holding the button down press the P1 button on the keypad to lower the transmit power. I don't transmit on my radio so I have it on the lowest setting, which is 50mW. If you want to higher the power you can either press and hold down the P2 button and it will go up in increments on at a time, or you can press and hold down the lowest side button while pressing the P2 button.

Do note: the only way to reach the +W- setting is through pressing and holding the P2 button alone. Holding down the side button while pressing the P2 button to increase the transmit power will go up to the regular highest power setting, which is 5 Watts.  

More how-to's for this radio. If you want to know how to find save and scan new frequencies with the DM-1701, you can read about how to do that here.

GTM Theme Files For The Baofeng 1701

I know I can make my own now that I have the programming cable and CPS software for the Baofeng 1701, but sometimes the colours don't match what I have added to the colour palette. They are vastly different for some reason. Maybe its a glitch with the software, I don't know. Anyway, theme files can be shared among users. The files are in .gtm format, and some users have made some amazing colour themes for the Baofeng 1701. And the .gtm files are very easy to add to the radio with the software.

Problem is, one of the only places where users have openly shared the majority of these themes, which are technically free to download, has been left unworking due to the owners claiming that people / bots etc have been hacking the website, and they have disabled important parts of the website because of that. So no one else can register to the website, and the themes can't be grabbed / downloaded.

Pictured above. A screenshot from the thread "Post your creations here" on the OpenGD77 forum, where nothing can be downloaded and no one can register to the site anymore. The colour theme above reminds me of the old Ceefax screen which used to show on TV in the UK back in the day.

Despite the themes being visible as thumbnails with download links on the site. As mentioned above, that website is the OpenGD77 forum. As a result, none of the shared .gtm theme files at the thread linked to above can be downloaded anymore. I'm not sure if users who are already registered on the forum still have access to the site and are able to download files. I did manage to find 3 other gtm files online but that's it. The best ones are on the OpenGD77 forum.

Does anyone know of a website or download link that has all the .gtm theme files in one place. I could not find one. The files themselves are tiny in size, literally under 1KB. So a full download of all the files on that forum would probably be less than 1mb to download. So frustrating to be able to see them all in the forum thread and not be able to use any of them. 

UV K1 Mini Kong K5 Quick Comparison

Here are some quick reception comparisons between the new UV K1 Mini Kong and older K5 in airband. There are two videos below. The first one shows the older Quansheng picking up air-band better than the K1. And the other video shows the reception of the K1 when the stock antenna from the older K5 is switched over the the newer K1. With that we see an improvement in reception on the K1 Mini Kong. This leads me to believe the small stubby antenna supplied with the K1 isn't great in airband frequencies. And probably isn't as good In general as the standard antenna that comes with the older K5 / K6's.

Here it is with the antennas switched over

Overall, I think the older K5's and newer K1 are basically the same radios internally. With a very similar reception strength and reception sound quality overall. I believe they have the same chip inside. Both great radios, but I personally won't be buying a K1 at this time though, as there doesn't seem to be much difference between them when compared to the K5 / K6. So, as much as I like the look of the newer K1, I'll stick with my K5 and K6 for now. It seems like they are still the best cheap Quansheng radios for the price in my opinion.

Antennas: Fake Nagoya. What's Inside?

Quite an interesting test / tear down of the original stock Quansheng K5 antenna and one of the many fake Nagoya antennas that are out there for sale. Don't get me wrong, just like what's said in the video, some of the fake Nagoya's actually work very well. I should know, as I have a few which I believe are not genuine. So yes, some are excellent. But some are also terrible. Problem is, genuine Nagoya antenna's are so popular and well thought of, that every tom dick and harry is ripping them off. So its luck of the draw as to whether you end up with a good one or not. Interesting video.

 

Quansheng UV-K1 (8) Walkie Talkie

The new Quansheng UV-K1 and UV-K1 (8) are available to order on Banggood and AliExpress. There are a few people that already seem to have this radio, so pre-order deliveries shouldn't take that long to be delivered. Although on some listings it does say around 30 days. Both the Quansheng UV-K1 and  UV-K1 (8) have the same features. The only difference is, I believe, the way they look. Which isn't all that different really. I think they both look great. Under the shell they are very similar to the Quansheng UV K5 8 with the stock software. Same frequency range, TX / RX etc. The one big difference between the older models and newer models is the flash memory capacity.

 

It has been increased in these two newer models to 2mb. That might not seem a lot, but in terms of firmware text code for a little analogue Quansheng radio, that is a lot. This means that these two radios can be modified to have even more features and different types of firmware installed than the older Quansheng's were capable of having. Only problem is, those firmware's need to be developed for these radios. 

So there will be a wait for that. But the maker of the F4HWN firmware is already on the case and should have something ready to be released soon. So that will be great. And I'm sure in time other developers will follow suit. Some may already be working on it.

The battery options are a bit like what's available for the Baofeng UV-5R. You have the shorter, smaller capacity battery [1400mAh] which doesn't add any extra length to the radio. And then there's the larger capacity battery [2500mAh], which does extend the radios length.

Some radios extended batteries are just fatter, making the radio thicker. But with these two it's longer, just like with the Baofeng UV-5R. Still though, the UV-K1 and UV-K1 (8) are small radios, so even with the longer life battery the overall radio size is still not huge.

Searching Using 8.33kHz Steps

Many of the older radio scanners are quite limited in how many kHz steps they have. A lot of them just have the basic ones. So it has been quite interesting messing around with a modified Quansheng K5-8 [here] to see what can be found hiding under the many different kHz step types it has. My latest step number has been 8.33kHz. I think a lot of people, me included, always associate 8.33kHz with airband. Those who love listening to aviation frequencies always want scanners that have the 8.33kHz steps available. But I have no interest in airband, so I've been using the 8.33kHz step size to scan through all the frequencies not airband and have found some interesting "hidden" frequencies.

Don't get your hopes up, I haven't found anything top secret or anything. Just things like workplaces, people talking, etc. Still, it's interesting that if I was using a scanner that had no 8.33kHz step size, I don't think I would have ever know anyone was there. And I get the feeling that by the odd frequencies that these companies and people are using, they wanted it that way and are trying to stay undiscovered. Some of the communications are quite rare and sporadic, so I think there was some luck involved in finding them.

Anyway, if you have a radio capable of searching using 8.33kHz steps, start searching if you haven't already. A modified Quansheng can search using 8.33kHz steps, as well as many other steps. Some radio receivers can still go to frequencies that use 8.33kHz, even though they don't have that step size. 

One example is the Baofeng 1701, which is digital and analogue. I use the Quansheng to find the frequencies scanning in 8.33kHz steps, then type in the frequency on the Baofeng. 9 times out of 10 the Baofeng has been able to listen to the found frequencies if I type them in manually, even though it does not have the 8.33kHz step size / spacing.