I like my cute little Baofeng UV-3R+ though I find myself using its slightly bigger brother the UV-5R more often. Unfortunately the UV-3R+ has begun acting up with a fault that is difficult to fathom.
Quite often the UV-3R refuses to switch on. At first I thought that I had accidentally left the radio on and had depleted the battery, because I often do things like that. But the radio comes back to life if you remove and replace the battery or if you drop it into the charger for a few seconds. When I did this today the screen immediately showed a battery voltage of 4.0V which was expected given that it had been charged only a day earlier.
So the radio is failing to turn on even though there is plenty of juice in the battery. Like most HTs it has a "live" power switch and should turn on at the press of a button. The UV-5R on the other hand has a good old-fashioned rotary on/off volume control. Which, I now recall, was the thing that failed on my old Jingtong radio. Ho hum.
3 comments:
My UV-3R does the same thing. I believe the contacts under the power button (not a switch, as you observed) are not making good contact. If I push the button HARD and kind of roll it around, it'll turn on.
I sat for about 5 minutes mashing it over and over again and it seems to be better behaved now, but who knows how long that will last.
Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ
Thanks, Lynn. I'm not convinced by your theory, as once I have woken up the radio the power button does its thing perfectly normally. But I'll give your solution a try the next time the radio decides not to speak to me and I have 5 minutes to spare!
I have yet to have any problems with my UV-3R but the battery has gone bad in my UV-5R after 4 months.
It now has a total battery life of about 10 minutes of receive only and the 7.2v battery tests at 7.0v right out of the charger. I suspect one or more shorted cells.
I will order a replacement and I hope it lasts longer.
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