Baofeng BF-X3 Plus - Tri-Bander To Listen To Illegal Satellite Hijackers

in the early days of ringway manchester i spent quite a lot of time buying and reviewing the latest bowfeng two-way radio models so today i thought we'd go back to basics and look at the new bowfeng bf x3 plus this is a tri-band radio that's been recently released and whilst the 220 megahertz band may appeal to american and canadian radio amateurs it's really of no use to us here in the uk or is it this radio transmits and receives between 220 and 260 megahertz fm 220 to 225 is allocated in the us and calendar as the 1.25 meter amateur band and two two five two three nine nine decimal nine five is designated to military airband and is am so transmission between 220 and 260 megahertz in the rest of the world could land you in hot water however we can utilize this band in the uk and europe to listen to something quite interesting brazilian satcom pirates in the late 1990s rumors were circulating that it was possible to hack into american military satellites and use them for wide area communication the satellites originally part of the fleet satcom network use basic fm modulation and have uplinks around 300 megahertz and downlinks around 260 megahertz it became apparent that tuning into these downlinks enabled you to hear illegal pirates from brazil in particular who were using these u.s military satellites for use for wide area communications fleet satcom uses geostationary satellites so unlike the international space station there is no pass you're either in the satellite's footprint or you're not but let's come back to that later in the video this ip67 rated transceiver packs quite a lot of punch compared to many standard perfect models it's tri-band so covers a frequency range of 136 to 174 megahertz vhf 220 to 260 megahertz vhf and 400 to 480 megahertz uhf it has an advertised output power of 10 watts which we will test later in the video i've reviewed all their 8 and 10 watt models and they have been pretty accurate however we won't know until we put it on the meter it comes with a battery pack battery charger belt clip and tri-band antenna which is more likely to be better suited as a dual bander i decided to replace mine with the ruboscopic antenna by phil g3ypq and there's a video link and purchase link in the description below for this antenna which is ideal for all three bands because it's telescopic the layout is in keeping with most of the bow things both internally and externally so if you use bowfeng radios you won't have any issues on the left are the two function buttons and ptt the function buttons toggle things like flashlight fm radio monitor function and emergency alarm and the ptt is rubberized unlike some of the other both models out there on the front is the keypad and function buttons and just above that is the all familiar classic bowfeng screen now don't be fooled by the digital mobile radio lettering on the front this is not a dmr dpmr or any other digital mode radio on the top is the on off and volume knob flashlight and sma antenna socket and on the right hand side is the speaker mic and programming cable jack the belt clip slides onto the battery and the battery then clips in place on the back of the radio programming software is available and it takes the standard kenwood type cable and the radio is also programmable in chirp as a uv823 now the radio is advertised as ip67 rated the both things i have with this feature usually have the motorola type data jack on the side as opposed to the standard plug jacks although these are covered with a tight fitting rubber cover i'm not sure i'd want to test the ip67 rating on this model ip67 implies that the radio is 100 protected against solid objects like dust and sand and it has been tested to work for at least 30 minutes while under 15 centimeters to 1 meter of water but i'm not quite convinced after all it is a 30 radio the menu options are identical to all other boffing models so we won't go into any great detail but what we will do is head out and see if we can make a couple of contacts on the air and most importantly receive some of those brazilian satcom pirates my location today as always will be idle hill in wernethlow country park it's the home of the old wireless station and has a great takeoff over cheshire greater manchester north wales and parts of lancashire hello cq hello cq hello cq on 2 meters m3 hhy mac 3 hotel hotel yankee calling cq12 standing by for any calls max 3 hotel hotel yankee mobile yeah lewis there's not an awful lot of difference there it's still still a good strong signal and a pretty perfect audio mate yeah okay i'm on the bowfeng bfx three plus it's a new new handset that's that's just come out which i've picked up so yeah you're sounding still sounding good on this one anyway as you'd expect but yeah i'm glad glad the audio sounding uh sounding nice yeah it's fine no problem i'm only on five watts so lewis so if you needed any more i could put a bit more on but yeah most of the time for local stuff i just stay on five watts i can't see the point of pumping it up for the sake of it but uh yeah so yeah no sounding no problem at all what sort of cost are you looking for something like that um from what i've seen it's around sort of thirty dollars on some of the um the uh auction sites so um it's it's pretty cheap it's a it's a tri-bander um it's obviously two and seventy but it's got 220 megs 220 up to 260 which obviously you can't transmit on here but it's handy for listening to the brazilian pirates you know the satcom pirates right yeah yeah this has got 220 as well this little ft 300 so yeah i bought 30 dollars by it's bottle of wine money is it mate yeah it's really really cheap i'm quite impressed with it actually it's uh it's like waterproof and dust proof and stuff it's quite quite rugged and and that so i'm just gonna put it through its paces over the next few weeks and see how we get on with it but yeah for that for that price it's it's nothing really uh the other radio i was using was um a little bit more expensive but like you say there's there's no difference between the two um you know just when you're testing voice to voice um from uh like we are now back to you yeah it works no problem there yeah it just goes to shoulder how these chinese guys have come on in leaps and bounds and you've gotta pay you know hundreds of pounds for a similar yay sue or something that would cost you i'll let you get better quality but would cost you considerably more but for uh if you've only got a short budget then he's granting it yeah no no no it's all there mate uh just a quick question have you have you considered uh moving along in the lighting stakes are you quite happy with your m3 m3h1 by returning yeah for the moment i'm i'm all right a lot of people ask me but for for the amount i'm actually on the air and the amount i actually do with radio the you know the m3 it serves its purpose and like i say i i run five to 10 watts um i don't really do hf so i know i should i should progress i should progress and um get you know get the 2e0 and the m0 and stuff but i've just not uh not got around to it not got a a massive need to as of yet that might that may change in the future chris but yeah just stop here happy with what i'm what i've got now back to you from m3h hhy mobile 0kjc returning all understood lewis i understand where you're coming from yeah yeah the only thing i hate about the two is zero is the coal sign i do a lot of morse and bits of ssb and it's a horrible call sign but it's you can't do anything i did ask for something else but they won't let me have it and then i've had to have a two easy zero okay mate i shall leave you to it uh and see if you can uh work anybody else uh lewis back to you yeah okay chris no worries well um chase is going back to the call anyway it's good good to catch you again for like i say it's probably been probably in a good 12 months now but all right chris have a good day catch you again 7 3 m3 hh one last called come back to s20 nsi yeah m0 was it nsi or nfi it always sounds like an s it's november india just trying a little mini beam i've just been on the roof and uh timing that as the other chat went and you went um so yeah it's brian and just i mean yep no worries brian m3 hhy mobile name's lewis this side just at werner's low so um there's there's not a lot between us really but you're sounding really good uh nice strong audio nice uh really strong signal up to uh up to one of low i haven't got a signal meter proper signal meter on this radio but you're five nine plus uh absolutely no problems whatsoever brian back to you yeah sorry about that always uh just checking the answer that's oh yes um no you're just over the other side for me or anything but um yeah you're a good strong signal anyway no problem at all i'm just on the 705 so i'm only running five watts but uh i had a bit of an issue um with the uh connector so i thought i'd uh i'm just checking it for directivity to be true from then yeah it does work so it must be uh back up and running the swr seems okay so uh jobs uh jobs are good all right then no worries i'll let you work a few more um m3hy mobile m0nsi m0 nsi hhy mobile okay brian good to uh good to hear it's all working anyway and nice to get you in the log for the first time 170 for now have a good one and we'll catch you again uh m2hy any other stations on frequency [Music] [Music] hello okay so as you can see the radio is working really well with good signal reports and good audio reports so the last thing i did was put it on the meter and i'm going to show you now on the screen what the output power results are so a really nice radio from beaufeng all in all it's a 5 watt model not 10 watts but for that price you can't ask for any more plus the battery will last much longer it's also a great way to start hunting out those brazilian satcom pirates in 250 megahertz and let me just remind you that it is illegal to use this band to transmit anywhere outside of the usa and canada you

Channel: Ringway Manchester

Views: 371,649

Keywords: satcom, fltsatcom, fleet satcom, satellite, ariss, amateur radio, baofeng bf-x3 plus, bofeng bf-x3, baofeng uv-10, baofeng 20w, baofeng high power, 18 watt baofeng, walkie talkie, ham radio, cb radio, two way radio, Brazilian satcom pirate, brazilian satcom, pirate radio, tri-band transceiver, tri-band, 220mhz, 1.25m band, 220mhz band, illegal radio, new baofeng, 2021 baofeng, radio range test, walkie talkie test, two way radio test, radio review, icom, hytera, baofeng, pofung

Id: DzpGtBtYqeY

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 09 2021