BaoFeng UV-5R+ Dual-Band 136-174/400-480 MHz FM Ham Two-Way Radio (Black)

Why we love it?

With full high two colors LED definition display, the screen exquisite clarity. Upgrade the frame material. Metallic, more durable and more fashionable.

Some comments about this we saw on the web:

* /u/djscsi on /r/BurningMan FWIW I gotta recommend Duracell’s Procell for bulk batteries. :)

Also if youre into radio stuff, have you checked out these VHF/UHF handsets? They are freaking amazing.

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——* /u/aaron42net on /r/BurningMan Interesting project!

I investigated similar options a few years ago. As a ham radio operator, I was passingly familiar with APRS, which is a 20-year old networked position reporting protocol with some available hardware. It turns out that the Black Rock Amateur Radio Association for years has been running a permanent solar-powered APRS repeater on top of Razorback Mountain, which overlooks BRC. It is linked to a similar station in Gerlach, which relays to the internet. If you zoom out a bit from http://aprs.fi/#!addr=black%20rock%20city%2C%20nv you can see the stations RAZOR and GERLCH along with whoever is running APRS in the area at the moment.

The last few years, we’ve been putting APRS trackers on some art cars, which is accessible to anyone with an APRS receiver or via any participant network connected smartphone via an on-playa live map server (currently down) accessible to anyone on the BRC participant network.

If you have or get a ham license, you can standalone trackers for ~$120 or so, or can combine a $30 Baofeng ham radio with an old android phone running APRSDroid to do two-way position reporting.

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