EXTENDED CHANNELS?! Frequency Hack? How to Program your Baofeng UV-5X or UV-5G out of band.

Ooops, Ham Radio Dude did it again!

While conducting research on the UV-5G, also known as the UV-5X GMRS, I made an interesting discovery. The hacked up firmware is in fact writable for bands other than GMRS. I have tested this out on 2m/1.25m/70cm.

In the future, the radio will be hooked up to a Spectrum Analyzer (Rigol DS815) to check the Emissions. I suspect 2m and 70cm filtering is fine (just like more recent baofengs), but we probably do not have 1.25m filtering.

First, there is no hardware modification required. Instead, you will need the following files:

CHRIP: https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Download

XML Notepad: https://microsoft.github.io/XmlNotepad/

UV-5X Software – https://baofeng.s3.amazonaws.com/Baofeng_UV-5X_Programming_Software_V2.0_20210308.zip

XML File (Please do not redistribute, or if you do, Please give me a little credit.) https://www.hamradiodude.com/UV-5XHacK.rar

(Affiliate link included, I may make a a commission off the sale of the following items):

Next, You need a programming cable. I would recommend a legit programming cable like this: https://amzn.to/3GyckB7

Last you will need the UV-5G – https://amzn.to/3mshEOc

To start the mod, follow the instructions below:

Although the modification can be done, my findings are the following:

  1. Channels 1-30 will default back to whatever the Chip has them set to. Meaning you can change Channel 8 to Narrow band, but when you go to that channel after programming, it will show Narrow band until you leave the channel and come back. This probably is in fact a way the firmware or chip was coded. To scan for changes in the first 30 channels and overwrite them immediately.
  2. Channels 31-116: You can write pretty much anything for transmit into the radio between 136-520mhz. This doesn’t mean that is clean on the spectrum level. Additionally, this means we can set up GMRS channels like on the UV-9R. Meaning 31-116 can be multiple repeaters set with different tones for each area you will be in. Finally, this allows us to be able to set power limits. Realistically, not being able to modify the power limits in channels 1-30 is absolutely ridiculous. I’m certain NO GMRS user EVER needed to consume power but transmitting on low power.
  3. Chirp probably has the ability to do all this, but my guess is, the developers of Chirp intentionally restricted this. This is just a guess though, I am not trying to make a developer upset because I jumped to a conclusion.

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