DISCLAIMER: Modifying radios will invalidate the warranty, you will permanently damage your radio, you or your house if you attempt any of these modifications without taking precautions in your work area, using the correct tools and having the confidence and experience to actually do it. Best of luck!
What is wrong with radio designers, do any of them actually test the ergonomics and functionality of their designs? For example, the Baofeng UV5R, probably one of the biggest selling inexpensive dual band VHF/UHF radios ever. Its built down to a price but the cost of adding a dual function knob or separate VFO/change function with volume manufacturing wouldn’t increase the cost that much. Remove the useless LED torch and there’s room for a slim panel mount encoder.
Image: Baofeng UV10R main circuit board both sides, found on the internet author unknown.
UV5R circuit board preparation for microphone gain modification. This is not my picture, I copied it from Google image search, author unknown.
How about the Yaesu FT-70D, a well built tiny VHF/UHF dual band radio with C4FM and now WiresX capability. Awful method to get it into program mode and silly design for operating the volume, having to press and hold a button on the side under the PTT to adjust the volume. Really? This radio for a couple of dollars (or pounds, euros, yen) could have been the replacement for the FT-60.
Yaesu FT-70D in the centre with its single adjustment knob. Compare it to my Kenwood TH-D74 with its dual function control or the Wouxun on the right with volume and function function knob. Even the cheaper Wouxun has a decent LCD screen instead of a 7-secment LCD on the Yaesu. The Kenwood and Wouxun connecting to a computer to program it is easy, with the Yaesu? No, you have to switch it on, plug in the power lead, remove the battery with it still switched on, Press and hold a button whilst plugging in the power just to get it into programming mode. What a faf! It’s not something I do often but if for example I feel like adding extra frequencies into memory or changing a function, I do it from the computer software.
And the FT-4XE, just like the Baofeng UV5R, why no VFO knob? The picture above is my unboxing video that I haven’t uploaded to YouTube because everyone and their dog has done one.
My dogs after a hard day unboxing and reviewing radios
Do any of the designers realise that most users have these one=handed operation and have the radio in a protective case or a holder meaning you have to take the radio out physically to do anything besides PTT or turn the only adjustment knob. Even with a plug-in speaker microphone, you are limited.
Yes you could buy a more expensive radio new or a used bargain but that beats the point of having cheap radios for the masses.
Let’s look not at alternative radios, but because of the cheapness, one can afford to experiment and fix these issues.
Looking at some of the teardown videos, I can see opportunities for simple mods that add functionality. For example, the Baofeng, that LED has to go, I mean who uses a LED torch like that? If you’re the type of person who owns and uses one of these radios, I bet you have a proper torch on your keyring.
There is room inside to fit a slim rotary encoder with a tiny microcontroller on the back to give up / down pulses to emulate the up/down buttons. The controller is needed to interpret the clockwise/counter-clockwise pulses, debounce and add slow / fast functionality. The centre push button can emulate the select button. One of those ultra small Arduino IDE compatible microcontroller boards will fit and once programmed, soldered directly to the back of the encoder. The connection wires are simple enough with micro wires for Up, Down, Select, Ground and supply voltage.
Similarly for the FT-70D, there isn’t much room and I wouldn’t want to cut the alloy panel/heatsink of the radio but a slim, waterproof, silent push switch mounted on the outside with wires entering the radio and connected across the volume switch would mean 1 handed-operation to adjust the volume without having to take the radio off its clipped mount or out of its case to adjust the volume.
I have trawled the internet and not found anything where someone has done a hardware mod so I feel I am going to do them mods and share them with you all.
This is a screenshot of an older video from 2020 during lockdown where I modified a Baofeng UV10R to increate the microphone sensitivity by repurposing the VOX switching transistor into a pre-amplifier by cutting a few tracks and adding a couple of surface mount components. This was done with a silly soldering kit, I bought off Amazon because my soldering station was unavailable. Hence the warning at the start of this blog.
Modifying radios will invalidate the warranty, you will permanently damage your radio, you or your house if you attempt any of these modifications without taking precautions in your work area, using the correct tools and having the confidence and experience to actually do it. Best of luck!