Baofeng UV-B5 / UV-B6

Keys on the main screen

• UP, DOWN, 0..9 – Select channel or frequency
• MENU (short press) – Enter menu
• MENU (long press) – Keypad lock/unlock
• AB⏎ – Switch between channel A and B
• W/SCAN (short press) – Switch between freqency mode and channel mode
• W/SCAN (long press) – Store channel
• FM (short press) – Turn on FM radio
• FM (long press) – Remove current channel

Main display

• Top area:
  • FM: FM radio active
  • DW: Dual Watch / Dual Standby
  • R: Reversed Duplex Mode
  • VOX: Voice Operated Xmtr
  • Alarm icon: TODO
  • CT: Transmitting CTCSS
  • DCS: Transmitting DCS
  • Battery indicator
• Icons on the right
  • Signal indicator (rightmost)
  • Plus / minus: Frequency Shift Direction
  • HI: High transmit power
  • W: Wide channel
  • Lock: Keys locked
• Channels (A and B):
  • Channel name / frequency
  • Active channel indicator (arrow ow on the left) - if the channel is not active but is receiving signal, the arrow will blink.
  • Channel number (number on the left)

Menu system

Pressing the MENU key opens the pseudo menu item 00 MENU. Then after pressing UP or DOWN, it's going to select the item that was opened when you closed the menu the last time.

* Use MENU, UP and DOWN to select the value.
** Use 7 and 9 for navigation through digits, UP and DOWN (or selection knob) to choose characters.

Global / Channel

Some functions only apply to a channel. Once you switch channels, or you switch from A to B, the menu item will change. If you're in frequency mode, the value stays the same even if you change the frequency. However A and B is still going to be different.

Navigating the menu

• numbers: quickly go to menu item
• AB⏎: Change value
• MENU: Confirm and get back to menu (except for 11 R-CODE and 12 T-CODE where it is also used for selection)

Storing and deleting channels

To save a frequency to a channel, long-press VM/SCAN, then choose the desired channel number. If the channel number blinks, it's vacant. Finally confirm with VM/SCAN, MENU or AB⏎. Delete channels by long-pressing FM.

There are 99 positions available and 16 positions in the FM Radio mode.

Side buttons

Under the PTT button, there are two other buttons with dots on them.

Button 2 (the top one) temporarily disables squelch, i.e. monitors the frequency regardless the quality of the signal. When tapped, it also switches display backlight on and off. Button 1 (the bottom one) seems to do absolutely nothing.

Scan mode

After pressing MENU and then VM/SCAN, the radio will start scanning either frequencies or channels (depending on current mode). Once it finds a signal, it does one of the following, depending on scanning mode (menu option 23 SCANM):

• TO (Time Operation): stops briefly (about 5 seconds);
• CO (Carrier Operation): stops until the signal disappears;
• SE (Search Operation): stops forever.

Stop the scanning with MENU or VM/SCAN. You can also switch the scanning direction with UP and DOWN keys or with the knob.

FM radio

Works pretty much like the "normal" mode. There are 16 positions for FM channels, see Storing and deleting channels for how to use them.

Frequencies go from 65 MHz (!) up to 108 MHz. Frequency step for FM radio is always 100kHz.

Note that if there is signal from the "normal" mode, FM radio will be interrupted.

Factory reset

Turn the radio off, press and hold MENU (not FM as the manual suggests), then turn the radio on. A menu will apear:

• VFO: Reset channels etc.
• ALL: Factory reset (note: language will be switched to chinese as well)

UV-B5 vs UV-B6 (comparison matrix)