UV-5R3 Getting the Right Program for your Radio

June 2018

This one is hard for all of us. There are several radios coming into America right now that have the same number on the case but have VERY DIFFERENT brains underneath (welcome to the world of Chinese radios). This makes it very difficult for you to identify which programming package works with that model. Believe me... it makes it hard for us too. Let me detail here what we know right now about one model in particular that is more difficult than most.

The radios causing the most confusion right now are from Baofeng and BTech. They are very different although their numbers are very similar. Notice the numbers are NOT identical. If you will carefully consider the manufacturer and the number, and believe what we tell you here, you will get what you need to address your radio (until the manufacturer changes something!!)

• Btech UV-5x3 - This is the easiest of the group because it is the ONLY one from BTech. It is a true tri-band radio with three VFOs. Its electronics are designed for operations in the three bands. When you toggle through the three VFOs with the Band key on the face of the radio, you clearly see the 2M, 220MHz and 440MHz bands on the display. Be sure you are in VFO when testing. You will be able to enter 2M, 220MHz and 440 MHz frequencies into a new file. The programmer for this radio is the BTS-5X3 found on the Btech Handhelds page of the RT Systems site.
  
  
• Baofeng UV-5R-3 - This radio operates in the 2M, 220MHz and 440MHz band with three distinct VFOs. There is a band key on the face of the radio that toggles between the three VFOs. Yes, it performs VERY MUCH like the Btech radio but apparently there is something different in its brain... let's just say that one of them speaks Greek while the other speaks Latin. The programmer for this radio is UV-5R-3 found on the Baofeng Handhelds page of the RT Systems site.
  
  
• Baofeng UV-5Rx3  - This radio has been available from Main Trading in Paris, Texas and from Radioditty on Amazon. It is the same radio from both... we know, we have purchased and tested BOTH. This radio does 220MHz through an expanded VHF frequency range (i.e., the 2M band has been expanded through software to cover up to 260MHz.
  
  

  You can test this and I'll make it easy for you... in VFO mode, enter 259950. Then press the up arrow button until you reach the top of the band... your step will determine how many times you'll have to press the up arrow. I was on 25KHz so it did not take me long. When the radio cannot add your step to the shown frequency without exceeding its upper limit, it will display its lower limit (i.e, 136.000). That tells you that the VFO covers 136.000 to 260.000 MHz. You access the 220 MHz frequencies by entering them from the face of the radio. The programmer for this radio is UV-5R found on the Baofeng Handhelds page (it's the icon with the list of radio numbers). No, we have not lost our minds... this IS THE PROGRAMMER for this radio. You can believe me... or you can try something that will not work... you always have choices.
  
  NOTE: We found that the radio from Radioditty has a mic jack that impedes the connection of the cable. This is not unusual for Baofeng radios. This is purely a physical issue and has physical corrections. 1) take a knife to the rubber on the mic jack or the connection on the cable. Trim things back a little (carefully, you do this at your own risk) to make things fit together better. 2) When doing Communications | Get data from or Send Data to the radio, physically push on the plug in the mic jack. If you squeeze around the radio, be sure that you don't press any of the buttons on the side opposite the mic jack.
  
  

• Baofeng UV-5R3Band - These were from R&L for a while. They are the same as the UV-5R. The programmer for this radio is UV-5R found on the Baofeng Handhelds page
  
  
• Baofeng UV-5R3  - This one eludes me: although I know that I have had it and worked with it... with all the radios around here it's not unusual to misplace one occasionally!! Given the specs I can find on it on Baofeng's site, I would think that it is a third version of the original UV-5R. The programmer for this radio is the UV-5R  If we find differently in the future, I will make corrections.

RT Systems will not leave you with a programmer that does not work with your radio when you and we have done all we can to get you the right one for your model. Contact us for details should you have problems Getting data from or Sending data to the radio.

REMEMBER: I cannot stress this enough... doing Communications | Get data from is required for these radios. Only the radio can tell us some of the necessary details for the programmer. If you have trouble completing Communications | Send data to radio, stop, open a new file and do Communications | Get data from radio. Once this is successful, return to your file and try the Send data to command again. If problems persist, contact Tech support for personal assistance.

The very worst thing about this is that the radio companies will customize these radio to the specifications of the buyer. You buy enough of them and they will put the "brain" in that you specify. So, at any time this all could change. If your new radio does not work as you expect it to with the software that you carefully identified should go with it, contact us for help. We have ways to get that radio to tell us details we need to determine what it needs for programming.