The Baofeng UV-5R is very popular among ham radio enthusiasts, and for good reason! It is a dual band radio (2m/70cm) with tons of options at an almost unbelievable low price. This has made the UV-5R a perfect choice for amateur radio newcomers as well as a must-have for long time hobbyists.
The biggest complaint with the Baofeng UV-5R? The lack of documentation. Baofeng is a Chinese manufacturer and these products are imported (this helps explain the low price). It is pretty common for imported radios to have poor documentation, and the UV-5R is no exception. A printed users manual is included with the radio, but it doesn't even scratch the surface in explaining the many functions of the UV-5R.
Looking for a better option, I stumbled upon The (Chinese) Radio Documentation Project. This project aims to create quality documentation for popular but notoriously poorly documented Chinese amateur radios. The project, created by Lennart Lidberg, produces open source documentation that is released under an extremely generous license.
Fortunately for us, the radio that they have started with is the Baofeng UV-5R. They have released version 1.0 of their manual and it is detailed, illustrated, and extremely well written. Anyone who was hesitant to purchase this radio in the past because of poor documentation can now scratch that concern from their list.
Writing manuals like this one is a very time consuming process and it is extremely generous that they are releasing the documentation to the community for free. If this manual was helpful to you, I would encourage you to visit the project web site and make a donation. Donations show that the work was appreciated, and will encourage them to keep the documentation up to date and add other products in the future.
