Airband Audio from the Baofeng UV-17 Pro GPS 

Thanks for the question. I have the Alinco DJVX50 and this works as well if not better than that. This blows away my Quansheng k6 as well. I mean you heard the audio. I was pleasantly surprised with it too. In this video I was using an external antenna above the roof I'm about 25 miles from the main airport and about 5 mi from a secondary airport and it seems to work well. It doesn't have the squelch issues the other about Baofengs have. I have this one still set up as a little base unit with an external antenna scanning a.m. gmrs and ham and it works well. For the price I'm very very happy with it. I don't think you'll be disappointed in the performance at all. I've been so busy with things lately but I do plan on doing another video on this radio soon. I do recommend it.

Hello. How did you get the airwaves?

Apparently these have a true AM receiver in them which seems to make a big difference.

These apparently have a true am receiver in them is why. Which is really nice. Still not as quality as a scanner but much better as you said

Sure I will work on that as soon as I have a bit of time. Good question.

Here is a link for the RU-vid video you asked me to make. Hope that helps. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Tt0FBGrv6G8.htmlsi=TRMa6p8dOunhfckp

Yes SMA 2 so239 connector. 50 ft RG58 coax to vhf/uhf vertical on a mast raised about 10 ft above the roof top.

Ok I'll look when I have some time. Hopefully it will.

@@northmanproject4007 I found that I had mistakenly read the wrong frequency for my local airport. That was for the ASOS (weather) channel. The UNICOM or CTAF was 122.800, so I should be good. I normally use 2m band for communications with fellow paraglider pilots while out, but haven't had an aviation radio. I'm hoping to be able to scan (monitor) the local airport traffic for collision avoidance purposes while still communicating with fellow paragliders on the same radio. For $25, I'm not expecting much, but have my fingers crossed.

I think you mean squelch? I try and set my squats to the lowest setting possible I usually run my radios around 3 and it works just fine. You may have to adjust it up or down one being the lowest and 9 being the highest. The higher the setting it's going to be more difficult to pick up weak signals so run it as low as possible. Try 3 and see how that works you may have to adjust from there

@@northmanproject4007 thanks a lot. That’s right - it’s about squelch (sorry!), originally it was selected to 3 position. I’ll back to 3 (I selected 1). Thank you.

@@KyokoMai sure no problem, you may have to adjust it depending on signal strength and interference.

I do have those radios as well. This one Definitely receives airband better than the others and the audio is excellent on this one. In my opinion. Baofeng has definitely made some good changes. Of course all of these little Chinese radios have their own little quirks but I like this one. Thanks for the comment.

@@northmanproject4007 indeed good for us

I purchased this one from alli express. Make sure you search UV-17 Pro GPS. Its a good one. I'll be doing a video soon after the holidays on this one. I really like it.

​@@northmanproject4007looking forward to the video!

This doesn't have the same squelch issues as the other uv5r Baofengs. Seems to work really well for me so far. I still have it set up as a little base unit using an external vertical antenna. I scann am airband, gmrs, ham. Is works well on all of them. Actually really well from what I can tell. I also have scanners and this one receives and sounds great. Not a scanner though. Slow scanning but it works. Most of the time it's camping out on a couple frequencies and I leave it there. I'm about 25 miles from one airport and about five from another. Haven't had any problems with it so far. For the price man this thing is a steal. Hopefully you have similar results if you decide. For the price I'd say go for it. And yes you want the gps pro with airband model.Sounrs like you've done your research already. Good luck. I've been so busy lately but I do plan on doing more videos on this one. Soon hopefully.

Thankyou so much for getting back to me.....not to bothered about its performance in FM mode....I already have to vhf/uhf FM handhelds if I need 2m.....which to be honest I never do....its purely as an airband AM handheld I am interested in......like you I tend to monitor 1 freq...so the scan side dont matter. I know I can buy a Uniden 125.....but I feel they are ripping people of with what the charge for them.....Uniden need competition to wake them up. I did think you were hooked up to an external antenna in the video.... Keep up the good work. 73 2E0LPL @@northmanproject4007

Hello! I bought one because its Air Band seems to be very good, but mine came with firmware version 1.03. The audio is very bad. Firmware 1.27 is much better.

UPDATE.....I bought one......its rubbish on airband.....its clear with some transmissions on airband......but most are garbled. Its gets overloaded with stronger stations.....at the airport.....rubbish....to many strong signals. Of course the FM side of the radio is fine....just useless on AM airband.....ok weak stations may be readable sometimes.....

@@nickaxe771 Do you think that if it is ever possible to update to version 1.27 of the firmware it could be good on the air band? Because the hardware is apparently the same, only the firmware changes.