Finally got rid of the pirated USB chips for the UV-5R and the AP510

Both the Baofeng UV-5R handheld UHF/VHF radio and the Sainsonic AP510 APRS tracker come with interface cables with pirated chips. These are clones of Prolific USB/serial chips. Since Prolific has taken measures against this, only old drivers will work with them. That means that one has to stop automatic driver updates as explained on the Miklor site for the Baofeng UV-5R. The same is true for the AP510. This is a nuisance.

I got tired of this and got myself some USB/serial modules from Ebay based on the CP2102 chip instead. The cost was US $1.43 a piece so it should be affordable for anyone. I also got some clear heat shrinkable tube.

The best of the Baofeng handhelds

How do the cheap Baofeng handhelds compare? I have had the Baofeng UV-5R since I bought it from the 409shop in April 2012, but recently I noticed that the UV-B5, UV-B6, and UV-82 have appeared on the market also. If I should need another handheld transceiver for VHF/UHF, is there any advantage in getting any of the other models?

I prepared the following table in order to highlight differences and similarities. Bold characters signify an improvement for what I conceive to be typical radio amateur use.

Visiting 409shop in Hong Kong

A stop-over on my way from Sydney to Oslo gave me the opportunity today to visit Apliu street in Hong Kong. This is where all the electronics products are found. As I had purchased a Baofeng UV-5R from them before it was fun to stop by the 409shop as well. Their address is on their web site, and the word "showroom" really made me expect something larger than what I found. It turns out to be just one small store among hundreds of others in this street.

I bought a handheld frequency counter, Yaege FC-1, and a better antenna, Nagoya NA-666, for the UV-5R and got a good deal - I like to think that it is because I presented myself as a previous internet customer.

On the other side of the street there was another store with communications equipment as well, Yee Fu Technology Shop, where I bought a 13.8V/20 A switch mode power supply, HK Products Electronics SPS-200MA.

It even had a noise-offset control which I have come to appreciate in my other power supply, the Alinco DM-330MV. It is particularly nice to have on 160 m. How they avoid Alinco's pending patent on this feature is something I don't know. There seems to be several other supplies on the market with this feature also, such as the Watson Power-Mite-NF (NF for Noise offset Function), so maybe Alinco's patent application hasn't been granted?