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Sure, receiving satellite signals isn't difficult at all. Transmitting to them and hearing yourself takes a little more effort, but it's still not too hard to do.

His first setup probably failed because he either wasn't hearing the signal well enough or his decode setting on his laptop weren't set right.
 
I'm wondering why his 1st setup failed.
If he was using a Baofeng for his first setup like he was in the second setup, that might explain it.

In my personal experience, Baofengs are just not good. I did some testing from outside on my back deck on a ham net once. I used the same antenna (a J-Pole) connected first to the Baofeng handheld, and then to a Yaesu handheld. The Baofeng picked up nothing, not a peep. The Yaesu picked up the signal well, it's meter showed it was very strong, with full quieting on the audio output. I picked up other signals from different locations with the Baofeng, so it wasn't a totally dead unit. Just a not very good one. The design of the Baofeng is not high end, but it's reasonable. What you lose when buying these cheap radios is quality control. You never know what you're going to get. Your particular radio may perform like a champ, or it may perform like a piece of cheesecake. If your Baofeng picks up any signals, be prepared to have to turn it to full volume and still put it right next to your ear if you want to hear anything. Their audio output if quite whimpy. Still, for the minimal cost of these things, IF you happen to get one that works, they are a good deal. The user interface sucks, but that is expected. Get yourself a programming cable if you Baofeng works so you can program it using your computer. You don't want to have to program more than one or two frequencies by hand on one of these things.
 
I had one I bought for 20$ at the flea market. it was too complicated, so I gave it away.
 
I bought a bunch of Baofeng UV-5Rs, programmed them all the same way, and tossed them in our cars and my sons and daughter-in-law's cars. I gave a couple away to friends who live nearby. Haertig is right - it's a crap shoot with those radios. I've been lucky with the ones I bought. All of them work fine, pick up local repeaters without any problem, they're very audible, and the screens are bright and readable.

My latest/favorite HT is a Wouxun KG-UV9P. Two super-het receivers for true simultaneous dual receive. They're extremely sensitive, too - great receive capability. Screen is nice but could be brighter. Sound is excellent. And, I can program it with a Baofeng UV-5R programming cable. :)
 

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