Staying on the air.
When looking at all the different accessories that are available for the baofeng UV-5R series of radios, one area that is often neglected is the batteries. As inexpensive as the batteries and accessories are, they will still not do you any good in an extended power outage if you can not keep them charged.
Portable solar power kits.
Out of all the solar power kits that are available one that sticks out as being adequate and able to charge the 1800Mah batteries for the Baofeng UV-5R radio is the Goal Zero Adventure kit available at Amazon.When an extended power outage occurs it is always nice to have a way to keep the batteries charged up on your Baofeng UV-5R radio. As inexpensive as they are, it is possible to purchase several batteries and keep one charging while using the other to relay emergency traffic or stay on top of any activity.
According to the user manual of the Baofeng UV-5R radios, the stock battery uses a rechargeable Lithium-Ion mAh 7.4/1800 battery pack. Normal usage is
- Consumption in standby: less than 75 mA
- Consumption in reception: 380 mA
- Consumption in transmitting: 1.4A
Although you wouldn't power the Baofeng UV-5R directly from the solar power kit. You could easily have one battery charging while using the other for relaying traffic on the 2M and 440 MHZ bands. The Goal Zero Adventurer should be able to charge the Baofeng batteries in a 2-4 time period.
For more information on the Goal Zero Adventurer kit, please take a look at Goal Zero Adventure solar power kit.
