The first radio I tested with the Beeline was a Baofeng because it was recommended by a Ham friend. Mainly because Baofeng is less expensive than Yaesu. The power meter on the Baofeng is totally useless either fully on regardless of signal strength or off. The Yaesu power meter actually works. Proves the old addage "you get what you pay for". I learned the same lesson buying inexpensive tools, there is a reason good tools cost more in this case the radio is your tool. Spend the extra bucks and get something that actually works.
Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttttooooooooooooo!!!!!
Hi Barre' You deserve the cigar. Like Dave is realizing, I believe most if not all Baofengs or Pofungs or whatever they call themselves these days
do not have true signal strength meters, period. Now that said, I've seen posted folks have been able to use binaural earbuds, or headphones and were able to detect the signal peak by ear alone. Ok, but I say ones hearing needs to be relatively intact and any background noise has to be manageable to pull that bit off. A strength meter that gives a visual indication is so much easier in a noisy environment
Now, if one wants to choose a single RDF ham radio rig for rocket tracking with the Beeline
RDF trackers and want to have the potential to do "other things", a Kenwood TH-F6A is a candidate because there is the potential to use the "B" band with some of the 216 Mhz Comspec and Walston stuff. One can select USB or CW modes and have fine tuning on that "B" band and I've received active trackers though I haven't actually gone out and made a recovery attempt against one of the manufacturers pricey receivers but the potential is there.
The receiving circuits on the mainline ham radios are much better than the cheap Chinese rigs. Some folks who've tried the Chinese radios with a Bluetooth TNC like a Mobilinkd:
https://www.mobilinkd.com/ to decode APRS trackers like the Beeline GPS and others have
mixed results.
I've used my F6A with a Mobilink TNC on a recovery with a Beeline GPS using APRS Droid
and it works OK. The only quirk is one has to "send" the base station position packet out to
get the base icon to "move" on the Android devices map when progressing towards the rocket.
I have to comment I just didn't have the incentive to explore RDF with the F6A though I did buy it for that purpose. Nine years ago I took the plunge into APRS/GPS tracking and I mainly relegated the F6A to Ham radio use. So much has changed in the last 9 years and I'm very happy to see the 900Mhz devices coming out so one doesn't have to get an amateur license.
Those devices are perfectly capable for sport flying to help folks find their rockets in cornfields, tall grass and most completely out of sight flights.
I'll whip out the F6A at a major launch sometimes and tune around on the Walston and Compec bands and pick up signals very nicely. Like I've said, I haven't actually compared against the commercial receivers but I get pretty strong signals. There could be a possibility that the received distance isn't as great but I don't know. If anyone has done some range testing with a Kenwood TH-F6A on the "B" band with Com-Spec or other RDF trackers please
relate your experiences. Good or no good for actual tracking?
Any FM receiver that can monitor the 70cm (420 to 450Mhz) Ham band can receive a Beeline
RDF beacon. Even a "NASCAR" scanner I have covers that band!
If Dave wants to try tracking with a $30.00 Baofeng, earphones, Yagi antenna with an electronic attenuator, doesn't sound like that much of a $$$$ risk as if he is serious about
RDF tracking he'll need the Yagi and the attenuator anyways. Here's one I like as it's economical and can be modified into whatever form you want:
https://www.west.net/~marvin/k0ov.htm
Incidentally if one is a Ham and would like a 50mW 2 meter band RDF beacon
he has one forsale here:
https://www.west.net/~marvin/microhnt.htm
I bought one many years ago and it still works well.
Kurt