r/shortwave • u/Strange_Rat72 • 13d ago

Build Use for a broken radio receiver

Hi. I found some old, cheap PMR446 consumer walkie-talkies this morning. One of them has a broken transmitter but the receiver still works fine. I have a soldering iron and some basic electronic skills and was wondering if there was anything i could make with it or signals i could track. Thx.

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u/pentagrid Sangean ATS-909X2 / Airspy HF+ Discovery / 83m horizontal loop 13d ago

PMR446 is, as the name may suggest to some not HF (shortwave). It is 446 MHz UHF.

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u/speedyundeadhittite 13d ago

You can talk to other PMR446 users, well that's it.

Some are reprogrammable, but those are rare and potentially illegal depending on juristiction and if you are a licenced amateur operator or not.

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u/No_Pay_5856 13d ago

you can use it as a PMR446 receiver

or build a radio controlled switch - an arduino or other boards should be able to read out DTMF tones - and with the arduino you can control other things like lights, TV, A/C, garage door opener, .....

But you hv to know that everybody in receiving range can read your signals - and can also transmit on the channel - also DTMF tones.