So as luck would have it, I'm kinda in the process of doing the same. My crew is pretty well squared away other than a few upgrades here and there and a little polishing of a few things. After me being able to use my radios to maintain comms and gather info after our recent weather events, I have some neighbors who had their eyes opened and have hit me up about helping them get something set up. Here's where the hard core ham's and hobbyist radios guys start loosing it.
Most of these folks haven't the interest, or the money, to invest 100's of dollars into radios, and licenses, etc.. They just want to be able to communicate down the road a mile or so, and listen for information. Inexpensive radios like the very UV-5R's you listed, are perfect for them, especially if I program them for everyone and give a simple crash course on using them.
I'd suggest a small, laminated guide also tapped to the battery. Unless you are using a radio all the time, some of them are not intuitive and to a non-ham or someone that is willing to push buttons and cycle through the menu it's even more important.
Yeah, I've got a little mini guide that I'm putting together based off the one I made for my wife to keep with her radio in her car. It's simple and doesnt require them to do a lot of button pushing, etc.
Got the Bluemax49ers.com cable to day and programmed two of the HT750s to use all 16 channels. Still need to play with a few features before programming the rest, but I now have 1-9 channels as low power simplex and 10-16 as high power.
Top orange button is assigned to "battery check" and top left is monitor. There are two other programmable buttons with a short/long option also. Still playing around with setting and figuring out scanning options.
The radios are 450-527 UHF, I will likely offer them up to the TG group and program them for anyone wanting a set or more.
Thanks again for pointing me to the cable / software!
Hopefully the HT750 CPS is more user friendly than the CPS for the XTS series. Like anything radio-related, trying to program/keyload XTS takes all of my concentration. I have the CPS and cable from Bluemax49ers for the XTS, and I also have a keyloader. Honestly loading keys is pretty idiot-proof, but programming is a different beast. For me. 🤣
There really is not a lot I would want to do with them that is not straight forward in CPS. The only thing I can see wanting is an ALL CALL button for alerting a needed MAG response.
LOL. The radios we use are incredibly capable. At least 2-3 times a year, someone will say, “Do X,” and I’ll be like, “Wait…we can do that??” 🤣 I know enough to follow along when someone tells me to go to a certain channel - most of the time. All the other stuff is voodoo.
So as luck would have it, I'm kinda in the process of doing the same. My crew is pretty well squared away other than a few upgrades here and there and a little polishing of a few things. After me being able to use my radios to maintain comms and gather info after our recent weather events, I have some neighbors who had their eyes opened and have hit me up about helping them get something set up. Here's where the hard core ham's and hobbyist radios guys start loosing it.
Most of these folks haven't the interest, or the money, to invest 100's of dollars into radios, and licenses, etc.. They just want to be able to communicate down the road a mile or so, and listen for information. Inexpensive radios like the very UV-5R's you listed, are perfect for them, especially if I program them for everyone and give a simple crash course on using them.
This is the way!
I'd suggest a small, laminated guide also tapped to the battery. Unless you are using a radio all the time, some of them are not intuitive and to a non-ham or someone that is willing to push buttons and cycle through the menu it's even more important.
Yeah, I've got a little mini guide that I'm putting together based off the one I made for my wife to keep with her radio in her car. It's simple and doesnt require them to do a lot of button pushing, etc.
Bluemax49ers.com has the CPS for free, and also sells the programming cables, if you ever decide to try your hand at programming.
Got the Bluemax49ers.com cable to day and programmed two of the HT750s to use all 16 channels. Still need to play with a few features before programming the rest, but I now have 1-9 channels as low power simplex and 10-16 as high power.
Top orange button is assigned to "battery check" and top left is monitor. There are two other programmable buttons with a short/long option also. Still playing around with setting and figuring out scanning options.
The radios are 450-527 UHF, I will likely offer them up to the TG group and program them for anyone wanting a set or more.
Thanks again for pointing me to the cable / software!
Hopefully the HT750 CPS is more user friendly than the CPS for the XTS series. Like anything radio-related, trying to program/keyload XTS takes all of my concentration. I have the CPS and cable from Bluemax49ers for the XTS, and I also have a keyloader. Honestly loading keys is pretty idiot-proof, but programming is a different beast. For me. 🤣
There really is not a lot I would want to do with them that is not straight forward in CPS. The only thing I can see wanting is an ALL CALL button for alerting a needed MAG response.
LOL. The radios we use are incredibly capable. At least 2-3 times a year, someone will say, “Do X,” and I’ll be like, “Wait…we can do that??” 🤣 I know enough to follow along when someone tells me to go to a certain channel - most of the time. All the other stuff is voodoo.
That's awesome! I saw a link to them for a cable, but not free software. I'm all over it, much appreciated!
https://bluemax49ers.com/product-explorer/motorola-ht750-ftdi-programming-cable-rkn4075/
$26 later... cable on the way and software installed on Win10 no issues.