Berget Forum

Hi,

Would this radio be a good choice overall, and secondly a good choice to use in Berget?

Wouxun KG-UVD1P

CE & FCC Approved
Works in the VHF band 136-174 MHz & UHF band 400-480 MHz
Also has an inbuilt digital FM radio in there
Can select channels in multistep frequency from 5K to 100K
Fully programmable with PC software
Power 5W

Full specs here:

http://www.wouxun.com/Two-Way-Radio/KG-UVD1P.htm

Would that work?

1) overall in airsoft?
2) specifically in Berget?

I have a few doubts with a radio like that;

a) it's not MIL-STD 810C/D/E/F -certified and built
b) and thus is not waterproof enough (IP68 spec standard), or robust enough

B9: Gravitas - NAF 3rd Ranger Batallion

UHF 400-480 should work fine at Berget, but we will try to get the programming-file for each batallion. Last year it was hard to comunicate from our own radios to "Berget-provided". Most common i think is Puxing 777 and 888 in that freq-band.

Our friend Thinker has much info about radios...

That will be able to hit the right frequencies at berget. A radio that meets the mil-std is never a bad thing, but in many cases is not necessary.

It is claimed to have IP55 protection which would mean protection against directed water spray. Should be enough unless you plan to go swimming I guess IP68 would be completely waterproof so you could dump it in a bucket and it would still work.

Unless you specifically need frequencies other than in 400 MHz band (for PMR) you could get UHF radios like puxing 777/888 a bit cheaper. Wouxun seems to get fair reviews though so it is not likely a bad piece of equipment.

Not a bad choice. Our team will use Wouxun 801 (UHF) at Berget. But I have had some experience with Wouxun KG-UVD1P - bought it for my friend at 409shop.com . The workmanship was very decent - even better than our 801's. I am sure that UVD1P will work as well as any radio with the same characteristics. This means:
- very low risk of failure in the rain (we used our 801's in the rain many times, and the problems we encountered were with earpieces, not with the transmitters),
- working distance - 1,8-2,3 km (measured in Central Russian woodland, plain - in the mountains it will have bigger variance, and at Berget where the greatest distance is about 5 km it will not cover all the game area unless you choose a position on top of some mountain, but it will still be useful in most cases),
- battery life - around 24 hours (depending on traffic, certainly: our commander exhausted his battery in 7 hours of intense radio-exchange), so I always have a spare battery in my utility pouch (you can buy it along with the transmitter, it costs something like 18 US dollars) and I charge it while I am resting at the base.

Mishka_U wrote:Not a bad choice. Our team will use Wouxun 801 (UHF) at Berget. But I have had some experience with Wouxun KG-UVD1P....

Thank you for the valuable insight!

Have you programmed your radios yourself? And do you program it to just about all possible channels or input different channels manually for each new airsoft scenario for example?

Overall: will there be a channel table for Berget9 published at some point for us all to use?

Most years a channel table gets published inside the team forums.

Gravitas wrote:Have you programmed your radios yourself? And do you program it to just about all possible channels or input different channels manually for each new airsoft scenario for example?

Overall: will there be a channel table for Berget9 published at some point for us all to use?

Our squadleader DiabloV has the programming cable and software, and he programmed our radios at home - turning on necessary functions and blocking some others. One can do it manually, of course, but we used computer programming to make sure that neither of our teammates missed anything.

DiabloV also programmed the 69 LPD channels for "Channel" and "Frequency+Channel" modes, but I vaguely remember that these modes are not wholly functional, so we usually keep our radios in "Frequency" mode. Some guys have small laminated 'frequency-channel' tables attached to the back of their radios, others calculate the corresponding frequency a few seconds after they are given the channel - it takes just a little practice in Arithmetics. Besides, commanders may assign to us some alternate frequencies outside the LPD or PMR range, so operating with frequencies is at most times preferable.

Of course, if you are communications officer for a large group of players and you have to work with lots of channels, some of them coded, it would probably be useful for you to program your radio before the game. The problem is that in large games like Berget you will seldom have all the necessary information for programming long before the game. Indeed, in most cases the complete information about what kind of radios some teams have and what frequencies can be assigned to them will come to you either right before the game or even well in the game.

If you are a regular soldier not above a Coy Commander it would probably be better not to bother much about complicated programming - just remember the simple instructions and the few frequencies given to you by the senior officers right before the game.

The whole channel table for your battalion is most certainly Top Secret.

Is it not possible to bring a laptop to Berget and program the radios on site?

Cuby wrote:Is it not possible to bring a laptop to Berget and program the radios on site?

Its been done before however its always easier to do it without time pressure, so hopefully each team will get enough info pre-game that can be spread within the team forums.

@kjsaw:

If I bring my laptop to Berget, and me and my team configures our radios on site, do we need a BE crew member to supervise the programming to avoid insertion of "banned" channels?

Heard stories from last years game, that some people where talking on the rescue channel, as well as some on the airport controll tower frequency. That in my mind is a big no no.

I know we will get a list of the channels allowed within the Battalion, but if there is a BE crew member present, will they prevent coding of "private" channels too?

Example: Commander gives me and my crew a mission, but we want to stay off the "local" broadcast, then we can just switch over to our private channel and go through the mission there so that no one else can listen in? ( HQ will ofcause be given the frequense so that we can communicate with them )

You stick to your battalion freq plan, or to pmr 446 that are open. You do NOT find a freq YOU belive is private. Someone either at the game or in some other function is using it. Use radioes that have low power output for team coms. Do NOT expect to be able to use 5watt uhf radioes for team chat. If you are sent on a mission that requires special coms your commanders will provide you with a com plan!

Warch out that you don't ever use channel 10 or 16...just when you get in trouble at sea

@Tiger_1: I see. Well. Glad I asked now then This way I won't do anything foolish when I first get there

@Waldo: I know to stay away from official channels but thanks for the warning either way

@ Cuby: Nice to hear that you know that ,but i can't say this often enough

I know some people from the german SAR (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger - DGzRS). They said that it is not uncommon that some idiots block the emergency channels for private conversations. Even if the radio channels get less and less important for distress signals, they are still in use and have to be kept free.

Sorry for getting off topic