Official Colorado HAM and cheese thread

Could someone shed some light on the adapters needed to get a Baofeng connected to a mag mount antenna? I ordered the adapters detailed in the first post of the thread, but was sent two female adapters and have no way to connect everything together
Bummed because I tried to get everything up and running last weekend and now I just have an antenna mounted for looks...

 

Hey Austin, this was just posted over in the EAF thread. Not sure if the adapters mentioned might help or not.

Also, I JUST posted in your build about the shopping list of HAM stuff you recently bought. Shoulda posted here...

 

I'll take a look in the other thread and get back to later today! Have a meeting to get to right now

 

Take it over to HAM Radio Outlet in Aurora and they will get you whatever you need to make it work. Cost me $4 I believe for my adapter. Tons of knowledge there too.

http://www.hamradio.com/locations.cfm?storeid=10

 

How about some thoughts on this guy?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RNGB9MW?psc=1&smid=AM1AKWRN957PC

 

Baofeng Tech imports the BF-F8HP
Baofeng US imports the BF-F9 V2+ HP

There's a lot of arguing online which importer is actually the "real" Baofeng.

A lot of the evidence points to the BF-F9 V2+ HP having older firmware and being less compatible with some data cables. Technically the two radios are the same hardware.

I believe most of us that have this style radio have the BF-F8HP which, with the big battery, is about $15 more expensive.

BF-F8HP HT:

$63 BAOFENG BF-F8HP (UV-5R 3rd Gen) 8-Watt Dual Band Two-Way Radio (136-174MHz VHF & 400-520MHz UHF) Includes Full Kit with Large Battery

https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-BF-F...e=UTF8&qid=1487786439&sr=8-4&keywords=baofeng

Big Battery:

$16 BAOFENG BL-5L 3800mAh Extended Battery Compatible with UV-5R RD-5R UV-5RTP UV-5R Plus, Original Pack, Black

https://www.amazon.com/Baofeng-3800...rd_wg=drOo9&psc=1&refRID=E6BAAXDRW7DMZHDQSFW4

 

$6 DHT Electronics 2pcs RF coaxial Coax Adapter SMA Female to UHF Female SO-239 SO239

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CVQP7CW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

You will want and need the extended battery regardless of choice. Comes in pretty colors is about everything else I could add. I have seen a few that are waterproof to X feet as well.

Oh, it has 8 watt ability are most are 5 watts so a bit more power.

 

That's exactly what I ordered... I must've been doing something wrong when trying to connect the adapter to the radio - it threaded into the antenna just fine. I'll check it out tonight and determine if I am an idiot or kind of an idiot. Leaning towards idiot at the moment.

 

Thread it in to the radio first.
The antenna connection has a ring that spins independently but if you connect that first you'll have to twist the wire all up to thread it into the radio.

 

Welp, found out I have SMA male adapters. Package says female to female - not the case. I may checkout the place @CO MTN Steve mentioned tomorrow and pickup the correct ones.

 

OR say fuck it and order up a Yaesu and an NMO mount antenna. Then load that fucker up with 1000 channels and you are good to go!

 

Hey Austin, FWIW, for SMA connectors and RF connectors in general, the sex of the connector is determined by the center contact, not the threaded mating feature. So a socket center contact is a female connector and a plug contact is male. Apologies if this is already old news....

Also, adapters can be a PITA to identify. The one in the Amazon listing at the bottom of the page says "SMA female TO UHF female adapter". It is more accurately an adapter consisting of an SMA female connection and a UHF female connection that mates a male SMA to a male UHF. So the description is of the adapter itself, NOT was it is used to adapt to.

Not trying to be pedantic or anything, it's just potentially confusing.

 

Thanks for the clarification, Jason. When I purchased the adapters I blindly purchased a similar item to those provided in the initial post - the wait time for the ones in the initial post was something like a month. It was simply an ordering mistake on my part. When I first installed everything it was around midnight (after the tcase work) and I just didn't have the patience to look into it at that time. I'm hoping a local shop has exactly what I need tomorrow!

 

Good luck, man!

 

Just downloaded an app that was posted a while ago. Starting to take the practice exams. Pretty interesting stuff

 

That's the tentative plan at some point

 

Trust me they have everything, take the antenna like I did and you will know right then. I need to go back and talk about hard mounted NMO antenna mount I went to put in roof.

 

Do you know of any shops north of the city? That's like an hour drive with traffic from where I'm at