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Which Quansheng UV K5 mod to buy? Green, small or big orange? (lemmy.radio)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I think about accepting the challenge and boldly solder SMD where I've never soldered before: Doing the Quansheng UV-K5 4732 addon PCB modification myself 🙈

But… before soldering I need to buy the right board to solder, and there seem to be 3 different options as of today: The green one (which consists of a PCB, a conventional through-hole resistor and a tiny SMD capacitor) and 2 orange PCBs of different sizes with different layout (see photos). The green one seems to be most challenging and the orange ones look easier... but I have no idea at all how these 3 options differ in terms of functionality! Maybe one of you has & could share their knowledge / give a recommendation?

Thx et 73 ;)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Wait, what do the PCB mods do?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

AFAI understand their basic functionality is to extend the frequency range for those UV-K5 devices down to 18 MHz when used with a hacked firmware. At least for RX, everybody warns about not to use a modified device for sending out of band (2m/70cm).

But the green PCB includes a resistor (for replacing the "choke"?) and microscopic SMD capacitors to replace on the radios main board to fix problems (idk which ones) with the radio. The orange boards include neither a separate resistor nor a capacitor, but the big orange board includes a second circuit which seems to be an amplifier to improve SSB volume. This is my interpretation of forum posts & product desctriptions I don't understand completely - thus my original post, hoping to find somebody who's savvy on this topic.