The Amazing Quansheng UV-K5(8) Radio Firmware Update.

[Applause] hi this is ji the radio preper you know I don't review uh handheld radios Much Anymore walkie-talkies because I just think they're pretty much all the same and I get so many you know except for a few uh features uh they have the same bands the same output power that's just very similar but sometimes you get something different and that's this guy you might have one already you might have seen it on YouTube it's the Kang or quangang I don't know how to say it UV K5 parenthesis 8 and I'm going to tell you why I think it's an important radio and why it's an important milestone in radio manufacturing this radio is a cheap Chinese radio I paid about €20 for it so maybe 22 $23 you might find it for cheaper I got mine on AliExpress and it is a dual ban VHF UHF radio now you might say so what I have a bow funger okay well let's this radio is much more advanced than that it's kind of a new generation as far as processor and functions and possibilities are concerned and you can change the firmware of the radio the firmware is a software that makes the radio run and that's what makes it so special because listen to this you can actually installed a firmware on this radio that makes it compatible with uh USB radios on 2 m and 70 CM that's right you can use well not USB but dsb what is that you may ask it's dual sideband so basically USB upper side band and an LSB Lower Side Band at the same time but it is compatible with other radios that are USB or just LSB like my old Icom IC 251 for instance and that allows you to extend your range because sideband dual sideband in this case allows you to get more range being able to hear signals that are weaker not on only that but it will allow you to listen between 15 mahz so that's in HF to 1300 mahz so 1.3 GHz and that's a lot and that's in FM AM and dsb and CW and that's a lot of possibilities it will even transmit on these frequencies but there is a catch there because the radio only has filters for the 2 m and 70 CM band so if you try to transmit on other frequencies you'll get a very very small output power not only that but you will produce harmonics and you will pollute the air waves and you'll get a knock on your door at 4 in the morning with people in Gray suits and U they'll take you away there are a few experimental firmwares that you can download and install on the radio the two main ones are igv and exumer I installed the igv version and first installed the uh 2.7 but the versions are coming out very quickly and the one I'm installing now and I'm going to show you how to do that it's fairly easy is the igv 2.9 R1 I'm not going to get into every feature of this radio and the different firmwares there are plenty of videos that do that on YouTube I do suggest that you go visit Oscar Mike zero Echo Tango's Channel he has some pretty cool videos about this and now I'm going to show you how to install the firmware and program the radio the radio has a USBC charging which is really nice but that's not how you program it or uh change the firmware you actually have to use a bof fun cable that goes into these connectors here and here it is I'm just going to plug it in and plug the other end into my laptop we'll start with the firmware change I have my cable plugged in into my Mac and I'm going to hold the PTT down and turn it on and you should have the LED coming on if the led doesn't come on that means you have a cable problem I already downloaded the firmware so check the link down below it says download firmware make sure you pick the right one now note here that I'm using the Chrome browser because uh Safari doesn't work for the Flasher to work you have to use Chrome or I'm not quite sure what you would use on Windows but here it is ready and I click on flash firmware here I choose my uh USB and I think it's this one and click and here we go the LED on the radio is flashing you don't see it but trust me on that and it's fairly fast it's already about close to 50% and that's all there is to it guys it just flashed the firmware in just a matter of a minute so it's pretty darn fast and that's it so here I am in chirp I will open the uh radio and load download from Radio of course I have to choose the uh okay that's the right cable and we have Kong of course the uh UV K5 and let's see if that works connect cable make sure connector is fly connected click okay whoops nope doesn't work all right so of course if the radio is on it works better all right so I have all my frequencies here I'm going to go down to the bottom and we'll add the uh frequencies that I want all right so I did a copy and paste of my uh frequencies here for uh the equivalent of the civil defense frequencies and uh I did copy from here paste here I'm going going to do radio upload to radio and simply click on okay so very simple to program this radio Whiskey Bravo Yan F Fox for Whiskey Bravo Yan whiskey bra Yan Fox R for Whiskey Bravo Yan over it's working F Whiskey Bravo Yan f [Applause] for [Music] so I'm not receiving uh I'm not receiving the other station and they're going to go in 80 M and unfortunately my magnetic clop doesn't go in 80 M but I'm very happy to to see that the radio works in dsb awesome we Whiskey Bravo Yan so is it a good radio for prepping I will say yes uh the only thing that bothers me is that it's uh it's not waterproof it's Splash proof but yeah it's not waterproof although of course for the price you could buy two of them that's not a problem uh the fact that you can transmit in dsb a dual sideband that's uh that's absolutely amazing and it's extremely useful also don't forget you have I am also amplitude modulation so if you don't want to be heard you could very well transmit in dsb or am I think from dsb to dsb that's there's a problem there so I'm not sure you could uh use two of these radios to communicate in dsb but you could do it in AM uh if someone uh someone knows I can't just can't remember right now but I seem to recall something like that so if someone knows put it in the comments can you uh use dsb to dsb I'm not sure in any case uh it's a great radio it's cheap that's that definitely helps and uh you can use a mode that will give you a little better range I will definitely uh keep it in my EDC and uh you know consider it one of my main radios just for that capability and I do hope that it will push manufacturers to to make radios now that will have will be all mode so we'll have USB and LSB that would be awesome now if only yesu iom Kenwood could make a radio like that I'd buy two of them at least at buy one regardless of the price you know because that would be absolutely amazing and maybe the success of quong will push them to do so I mean I really really hope so what I think is that this radio will simply replace the uh bang uv5r it's just a new bang that's it it's cheap it works uh well of course it's a bit of an unknown because it's very re came out recently but why buy a bang uv5r now that you have this radio and I would much rather buy uh the UV K5 than buying a bang uh you know that firmware capability extra capability that's really a big plus and that's it for this video have a good one

Channel: Radio Prepper

Views: 55,328

Keywords: radio, prepper, prepping, survival, ham, amateur, F4WBY, AK4YH, Gil, ham radio, antenna, communications, Quansheng, UV-K5(8), UV-K5, firmware, 2.7, IJV, Egzumer

Id: CP9ghugZbS4

Length: 12min 16sec (736 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024