#baofeng

For whatever godforsaken reason, about around this time last year, I was really into radios and walkie-talkies. I ended up buying a cheap Baofeng UV-5R for about $20 and started listening to jazz and such on the car radio as opposed to my own curated playlists.

When I was really into radios, I was sort of hoping there’d be this whole world of secret messages and the like that I’d be uncovering. I still remember ordering my UV-5R and waiting for days for it to come. When it finally came, I propped it up on my windowsill and set it to the scan mode, hoping I’d land on some super-cool top-secret transmission.

I wasn’t trying to uncover government secrets or anything like that. I was more curious about the casual banter that people might have over radiowaves, akin to when you’re in the dentist’s office and there’s banter going on between the workers and such. Maybe I’m just nosy and like to spectate drama like that.

Deep down inside of me, there was also a part of me that kind of hoped that this scanner radio would uncover a whole secret world of stuff to do. You know, like “go to this hill to see what’s on this frequency” and such. I never ended up finding anything super cool.

There was one time I was able to listen in on teacher-to-teacher walkie-talkie communication with the radio. Me and my friends were trying to sneak out of school so we wouldn’t have to sit through an assembly at the end of the day, and we somehow found the teachers’ radio frequency. I believe I’ve saved it on my UV-5R. Quite possibly one of the coolest things I’ve done with it.

Despite the little use I’ve gotten out of it, I don’t regret spending $20 on my UV-5R scanner radio. It’s a fun little doodad, and I’ll still switch it on every now and then to see what’s new. Sometimes, even just listening to the weather channel on the radio is enthralling. We live in a world of instant information that, in a weird sort of way, it’s nice to have to wait for forecasts sometimes.