Note: Carol, KE6SRN demonstrated her modified Quansheng HT at SPARC’s August 2025 meeting.
In preparation for the 2025 NorCal and SoCal SOTA group camping events, several ham operators thought it would be fun to make contacts on 2m CW. This was motivated by the recent discovery that the Quansheng radios (UV-K5 or UV-K6) could be modified to support this capability. At the time of this writing these radios sold for $28, making 2m CW both affordable and accessible to those holding even the entry level (Technician) ham operating license class.
The modification involves first installing the new IJV2.9 firmware:
Manuale Firmware UV V2.9R5
followed by the removal of a tiny, tiny resistor and jumping two components with a 1” wire.
This hardware modification is explained in the following YouTube video:
This video refers to a “Secret Menu.” It is accessed by turning the radio off, then pressing and holding the PTT and the side button beneath it (F1) while turning the radio back on. Set menu item 3 to CW.
After the modification, the CW signal can be sent with by pressing the PTT button, or by using the microphone input with a key. Only a straight key signal is accepted, but a double paddle can be used by using one paddle as a straight key. One exception was that Mark, KD7DTS demonstrated Iambic paddle mode by use of a keyer he built for $15. (Keying is weird. You have to send a dit before every separate transmission. That’s a Quansheng problem not the keyer. Mark said the keyer wiring was not correct also. He’s going to make a video. )
This modification does not disable the original features of the radio, including FM operation.