Hi Stan, see below.
El 29/03/16 a las 21:37, Stan escribió:
Hello.
I don't have the QYT KT8900 radio with 220Mhz yet, but I'm
planning on getting one soon. This may help you a little, from my
research the QYT KT8900 radio with 220Mhz is model QYT KT8900R
(note the "R" on the end). Also the Zastone MP-320 appears to be
the exact same radio. These claim that they have a range of
240-260MHz, therefore they do NOT cover the US band of 222-225MHz.
Yes, all data I got points that the QYT KT8900 is an ancestor of the
actual BTECH 2501+220, and the QYT KT8900R
can be a specimen in the middle of both.
I have yet to see an schematic of this radios (any of the big
family that is forming) to form an better opinion, but as this
units are based on a SDR chip like the Baofeng UV-5R and
schematics of this are on the public now I can speculate
about some facts:
- It's a common practice to have just
a Low Pass Filter in the output stage, so if the radio is for a
slightly higher freq (260 vs 230) it will not do any harm on if
you managed to get it TX low in the band.
- Almost all Chinese SDR radios do only low pass filtering or a
roughly band pass filtering with quite lower Q in the RX path
(My UV-5R has just a capacitor in the UHF "supposed high pass +
band pass filter") so I think band pass filtering will be enough
to pass way beyond the lower and upper edges of the designed
bands; as to alow reception on the 220-240 Mhz with decent
reception. (all this is just speculation as I mentioned.)
Does any have a schematics for this new Chinese radios? I'm
eager to see one.
The big issue remains to be the lowering of the band limits of
the 240-260 Mhz, but don't despair, the current development of
the btech driver in chirp with support for the QYT
KT8900 and others have revealed some clues that *maybe* this is
possible.
All that is needed to start is the cooperation of the users to bring
support for the radio to Chirp, then a brave user that want to risk
his radio to test with us a way to lower the radio to the USA ham
radio.
I have found this, too, but haven't tried it yet:
"Changing the 'PASSWORD' on these is supposed to change the range
of the associated band coverage. I have been told to 'hold F and
power on, get PASSWORD' and then you could use this to change the
'PASSWORD' which supposedly actually changes the Rx/Tx range."
So that procedure could be used to change the "222MHz" range from
240-260 to 222-225MHz, IF it actually works that
way!
The filters in the QYT KT8900R may not be able to cover
222 though, they may be designed to just cover 240-260.
Again, I have not tried this, I just found it on the internet.
Only practice will reveal truth. Keep us posted about the results.
I
have the BTECH MINI UV-2501+220 (haven't tried it yet) and it
appears to be the same thing also, except it comes already set up
for 210-230MHz instead of 240-260. Maybe the filters are tuned a
little differently?? Maybe something else is different also??
I must not make an statement here before knowing all the elements at
play, but seems to me like the BTECH family is the less bugged and
most up to date evolution of this radios. (as per the review on
public availability info everywhere on the net, as I don't own any
of this radios)
I just pushed a fix for the BTECH 2501+220 on the devel queue that
solve a problem with uploading to the radio.
A tip: Some of the magic word to open the radios into clone mode has
some bytes that appears to be dates and you can build a line in the
development that follows the date of the availability of the
different models, so far we have...
First the Waccom Mini 8900 & QYT KT-UV980, then QYT KT8900, then
BTECHs 2501 & 5001, then BTECH 2501+220, then ?
73 CO7WT, one of the Chirp's developer working on the btech driver.
PS: we still need the serial log capture from a QYT KT8900R !