YouTube channel “Ringway Manchester” on indefinite hiatus

I, amongst the many that are subscribed to YouTube channel “Ringway Manchester” by Lewis M3HHY, found out yesterday that for personal reasons, Lewis has had to make that hard decision to put the channel onto an indefinite hiatus, some very sad news as his radio reviews were truthful and honest, and I as such bought one radio he reviewed based on that fact, the Retevis RT87, I also own a Radio-Tone RT-3 Network radio which he also did a review on however I bought it based on exploring Network Radios rather than Lewis’ review.

This means I may not be working him through GB3MN and/or GB3MR as hoped, however in the grand scheme of things there are things that take priority over YouTube channels and the radio hobby, those must come first and the hobby and YouTube have to take a back seat until such times they can be returned to.

I, as a fellow Amateur radio operator and YouTuber, wish Lewis well and I hope that whatever is happening in his life right now is resolved with a positive outcome and he returns to YouTube and Amateur radio, if he has also had to step away from it which I get the impression he has had to do as well, sometime soon.

73 de 2E0EIJ

Retevis RT87: my next HT?

Now I wouldn't normally rush out to buy a radio based on a YouTube review however in this case I am tempted to after two very positive videos surrounding the Retevis RT87 by Lewis M3HHY on his 'Ringway Manchester' channel, which I watched in reverse order, the second video he did was a test on top of a local to him high spot called Werneth Low, where apparently high power transmission stations were present that should flatten the front end of any Chinese radio, particularly Baofeng radios, or even the Leixen VV-898 which I know to be terrible for this, however the video showed Lewis operating happily from the area working stations in Oldham and Stretford and other locations as well as two local repeaters, the first video being the unboxing and describing of the radio.

I found the radio on Amazon for £54 plus shipping with the data cable, the cable is needed as this radio is IP67 rated and uses a pogo-pin arrangement to make the connections (the pins are on the accessory, contacts are on the radio under a waterproof cap, my network radio has a similar connector but I believe it is not IP67 rated), otherwise I'd be spending hours programming a radio like this by hand.

So I certainly will order this radio, and put it through its paces, for £54 plus a programming cable you certainly cannot go wrong.

Probably does not work with Chirp yet so I'd have to install the Retevis software on my shack computer, it's not much different to Chirp and looks simple and easy to use compared to most Chinese radio programming software.

I'll keep you informed

73 de 2E0EIJ

The fatal flaw of cheap Chinese radios for 2m and 70cm

YouTuber 'Ringway Manchester', Lewis M3HHY, posted a video of himself and another amateur attempting to make contacts on 2-meters simplex from Blackpool Tower, something I myself wanted to do but decided against and, as Lewis revealed, I too would have failed as on the day I had only a Baofeng with me.

Radios made by Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu all have good front end filtering on them and a superheterodyne receiver, with a couple of the really cheap Yaesu radios being an exception on the latter, cheap Chinese radios tend to have a direct conversion receiver and poor filtering, as I demonstrated with my Leixen VV-898 this leads to interference from out of band signals.

Lewis had this problem from Blackpool Tower on a Baofeng UV-5R and another Baofeng which I believe was a UV-82, 10 stations came back to Lewis' calls but he was not able to hear them on either radio.

the other part of the problem is that there are antennas on Blackpool tower, to higher powered transmitters, though these are higher up than what the public are allowed and should have not caused a problem in theory, as I plan to get hold of a Yaesu HT (or an analogue Icom or Kenwood) hopefully before next year's Blackpool rally I hope to be able to give this a go myself and see if a Japanese made radio will be able to do what the Baofeng cannot do, work contacts from Blackpool Tower, also I really hope Lewis gives this another go with another radio, as that is a video I would very much enjoy seeing.

Chinese radios, you do get what you pay for, though don't get me wrong, I do advocate the Baofeng radios as they are very good starter radios for the newly licensed that cannot afford a radio by one of the big three.

Search YouTube for 'Ringway Manchester' for Lewis' video from Blackpool Tower and you'll see the difficulties he was having, after all the tower should make a very ideal place to get into the repeater on the Isle of Man, just Baofeng skimp on the filtering and use an SDR chip in the radios though all radios are prone to front end overload and desense from strong transmissions.

73 de 2E0EIJ