Troubles with Baofeng UV-3R (solved)

[W0ALE]

I was having issues getting the programming to work with the USB cable. It was showing COM port 3 and the software just would not recognize it (after rebooting, re-installing drivers, re-installing the BF-3R software) so I decided to change the COM port to 5, restarted the software and then it recognized it. Not sure why it didn't like COM3, but hopefully if anyone else has this issue they will do a google search and this will pop up for them.

On another note, I upgraded the antenna to a dualband Nagoya NA-701 and I was getting 5/9 on the repeaters here in town down at Cheyenne Mtn and up on Pikes Peak. I was using the high setting which I think is 5w(?)

[K0BG]

59 reports don't compute when using FM, much less through a repeater. You have to remember that FM is almost a yes/no scenario. Out on the fringe, you might get some phasing, or some intermittent dropout, but once you reach a few dB of quieting, increasing the signal strength by even 50 dB doesn't do much signal report wise.

[M0GVZ]

I always have a chuckle when I'm listening to the repeater and someone asks what their signal strength is.

[K0BG]

So am I Conor. There are a bunch of others which amuse me too, and perhaps you as well.

The manufacturer was right! The SWR is low really low! And across the whole band!

This antenna is super great!! I worked 4 DX stations the first hour.

I get 59s on every contact!

Etc.

[W0ALE]

LOL! That's good to know...I've had someone tell me I was 5/9 on a local repeater...must of been a newbie like me!

[N7LN]

I have a couple of the UV-3R's on order. Should be interesting to see how they work. Will probably throw one in an emergency kit, like a tackle-box gun.

[N7LN]

By the way, there is a rather active UV-3R discussion group at YahooGroups with over 1100 members, which you can find here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UV-3R/join/