Kv4p HT – A homebrew 1W radio (VHF or UHF) that plugs into an Android phone

There are many cheap shanzhai android phones with walkie talkie ptt functions (around 400MHz iirc) for about a decade. We tried to convince manufactures to open up the software stack to no avail, while being bullied at local hackerspaces (“this is illegal!”). I am licensed.

Previous discussion on 14-oct-2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818609 191 comments

Nice!! I wish it could do DMR though. Analog isn't used to much anymore in these parts. Although to be more precise, HAM radio has declined a lot but DMR repeaters are linked in groups so it seems like there's a lot more activity.

Is it so difficult to have schematics and pcb exported as PDF so that people do not need to fire up KiCAD to view the stuff?

I used to use SDR for DAB radio in the nexus 7 in the dash of my BMW E46. It didn’t work very well but was closer to being some kind of radio receiver (not trans at least)

> 1 watt transmit can go miles yet sips your phone’s battery

How far can such a device reach in a typical urban environment with the longer antenna?

1w seems a little limited? A cheap baofeng is 8w.

Is it still worth it to mess around with older full duplex handhelds ?

I loved it, amazing work, thanks for sharing it!

This doesn't turn your phone into a ham transceiver at all. It turns your phone into a transceiver controller. Given that a cell phone is a transceiver, this headline is rather disappointing clickbait.

[flagged]

Cool hardware... But remember, you will primarily be talking to Hams. And if youre a weird alt right, you probably will fit in.

And you really dont want to talk to hams.