By mistake, I ended up buying a set of Baofeng BF-888S handheld radios. I thought I was getting a pair of "normal", consumer-grade/license free PMR446 walkie-talkies I could use together with my kids Kidiwolf Kiditalk radios. That was wrong 😂
This is a real radio, that is supposed to be handled by someone holding a radio license! Nowhere was this advertised, but here we go ... Now, I found out that I cannot make this set legal to use without a license, as the license free PMR radios have some qualities:
- only broadcast on 446 Mhz
- narrow FM (12.5 Hz)
- max 0.5 Watt
- non-removable antenna
- non-programmable
This antenna, on the other hand, is
- programmable
- support both wide (25 Hz) and narrow band FM
- has a removable (i.e. upgradable) antenna
- can transmit up to 4 Watt
- supports a wide range of frequencies
What you can do to make it compatible (but not legal)
You can buy a cable that allows you to program them. I bought mine on AliExpress for about 150 kr (15 euro). I then installed a program called Chirp and talked a lot with ChatGPT to get things right, but to save you the trouble, I will just post the file I used. You can then just open it in Chirp and upload it to your set. You have then turned your fancy radio into a PMR compatible set that can talk to other PMR sets, but it will not be legal. As long as you stick to the 446 Mhz, I am not sure anyone can tell (nor mind), though ...
Other thoughts
At 0.5W the Kiditalk sets we use in our family usually have a usable range of about 2 km if there is nothing blocking reception. Typically line of sight in the mountains. Much less if there are hills, etc. In city areas in Oslo, they are barely usable 300 m due to building interfering.
In the mountains where we are pretty much alone for weeks, it could be tempting to configure these to use the high power setting and non-narrow bands, broadcasting PMR446 at 4 Watts ...