USED HAM Radio with APRS and GPS

Hey everyone.

I am looking to buy a USED radio for tracking rockets. Everywhere I have looked is selling new radios, and well...new radios are expensive.

I would love to find a Yaesu VX-8GR someone is willing to sell. But if someone has a FT1DR or Kenwood D72A they are willing to sell at a used price, please PM me.

I do have my HAM license, my call sign is KR0CKT, but need a radio.

I have posted in a couple of my local HAM club lists, so if you are a HAM and wouldn't mind posting something there too, I would appreciate it. Any other suggestions would be great too!

73s

Bryce

Bryce,

If you're patient and careful, you can get a good deal on eBay. I have purchased two handhelds that way with good success.

You can get Yaesu VX-8DR from hamradio.com (link) for $339 - which is a pretty good price. Receives two frequencies at the same time, and APRS is a breeze to use. After fiddling with cheap radios, PocketPacket, APRSdroid, I switched to 8DR this year... looking back, I should have done it from the beginning and saved myself a lot of time.

You could try the Baufeng UV-5 series , which currently are $26.25 through Amazon.
Dual Band, etc, etc, etc. Check it out.

Bryce,

Your best bets for a used HT/packet receiver are QTH.com, eham.net, and QRZ.com. I have successfully bought decent used ham equipment from all 3 sites. Good Hunting!

Fred (KG4YGP)
L2, ROSCO member

Salvage-1 said:

You could try the Baufeng UV-5 series , which currently are $26.25 through Amazon.
Dual Band, etc, etc, etc. Check it out.

Click to expand...

Doesn't look like this one includes APRS. You'd need a TNC, I think, to interpret and display the GPS signal info.

Unless you're just going by signal strength & a Yagi...

This is all pretty new to me too.

Salvage-1 said:

You could try the Baufeng UV-5 series , which currently are $26.25 through Amazon.

Click to expand...

You get what you pay for

1) It does not support APRS (no TNC / decoder)

2) If you care about voltages, it has headphone output jack, but not line out / TNC.

3) Even for RDF, it has a questionable S-meter (maybe newer models got better)

It is a neat backup unit - but for primary unit I'd suggest looking at something a bit more expensive.

Bryce, my experience with the VX8-GR has been disappointing. Save your pennies and get a Kenwood D72, it is just a better APRS machine.

cls said:

Bryce, my experience with the VX8-GR has been disappointing. Save your pennies and get a Kenwood D72, it is just a better APRS machine.

Click to expand...

What was disappointing about the VX-8GR?


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

Random Flying Object said:

What was disappointing about the VX-8GR?


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

Click to expand...

I would like to know to as my VX-8R has served me well. It is responsible for recovery of many $1000 of dollars of rockets from as high as 42,500' and as far away as 6 miles.

Dennis