| KD8EZU |
Rating:      |
2013-11-12 | |
| There are hams who value affordability |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I'm sure older hams remember the lessons of Collins and other USA made radio's and what happened to them when the Japanese "invaded" ham radio. Yep! they were well made and quality , but very few hams could afford them. The Japanese companies offered the same ( and often times more.. for less than half the price ) These companies disappeared. You cannot get blood from a stone, not everyone can afford a Bently or Rolls-Royce no matter how well they are made.
I have three of these of about 8 months now and FOR ME, a poor, non-retired, working stiff ham they are great. First off, I can afford them and with their low price can get a 3800Mah battery, external microphone \speaker, Car adaptor , and the programming cable, all for less than $60.00 ( Amazon ).
As a ham who reads reviews BEFORE buying anything , I read the reviews and modded the audio on both the mic and the external mic/speaker by simply opening up the hole leading to the mic element ( careful.., don't be a dummy and DRILL into the element). I also bought a better antenna from MFJ for the princely sum of $17.99. The Nagoya- clones are even less on Ebay but come from....cringe...CHINA!!
I get great reports on audio an good reports for signal strength. No heating issues, but then again I don't have long QSO throne speeches.
Build quality? Very good , no cheap feel , quality plastic and metal ( where needed) . With the optional 3800 Mah battery pack it feels really, really great in the hand. Buy that option even though the standard battery pack lasts just about forever.
Things I don't like. The programming... but I read and NEVER did it manually for more that a few channels. The programming cable is a must and either the Baofeng software or CHIRP software works. Buy the damn cable and stop complaining!
The manual is so bad it's hilarious ( really) Get MR Linneberg's manual ( Excellent ) and contribute to his effort thru Paypal. I had my bound at Office Depot ( it's that good ).
These Chinese made units have empowered those that would have to do without them if only the Japanese HT's were available. For throwing in a Car, bug out bag, hunting\hiking knapsack, or just to have they're are better than great...their price enables you to get two or more WITH all the accessories. Read these reviews...were not all crazy here... we're just being honest.
Collins, Hammarlund, and others learned a hard lesson in the 1960's..... if you price yourself out of the market, and don't offer a affordable alternative you go the way of the dodo bird and dinosaurs.
There will always be a market for Mercedes , Cadillac's, Lexus's and Acura's. For me.. a Ford, Toyota, Nissan, or Buick is just fine thank you.
Thanks Baofeng for at least giving me a choice and a chance |
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| KD8GGY |
Rating:      |
2013-11-05 | |
| Great HT for the Price |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I really enjoy this HT, I have dropped it many times and she is still working like new. bought a different antenna for it which was a major improvement. No, it does not have a lot of features the higher priced HT's Have. That's why it only cost 40 bucks.
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| KB9TMP |
Rating:    |
2013-10-16 | |
| Works OK, But Has Some Glitches |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have three of these, one UV-5RA and two UV-5R all with the BFB297 firmware. These are nice radios for "CHEAP" and "DISPOSABLE" radios. If you are expecting the quality of a FT-60R or a TH-F6a it ain't gonna happen. But if are expecting a radio to do the basic things like monitor a repeater or have a short chat, it works well. If you want to pack a radio with you without worrying about destroying your "EXPENSIVE" HT this is a great radio to have. Things to note if you don't have one and are interested. This radio is a part 90 radio and does NOT program like a ham radio. Do your self a favor and use the software. CHIRP works very nice with it. The factory programming cable will cause you driver headaches, but the Kenwood PG-4Y cable works great. Next to note is the fact that the DTMF functions are NOT all correct. A.B.C. & D. are done by pushing Menu, Up, Down, & Exit. When you press exit for the D you will get a zero just like you had pressed the zero button. Another wart is whatever you program into the channel zero memory location gets overwrote when you charge the radio. It will still have your memory name programmed, but it will revert back to the default of 136.025 MHz. Also you need to download the Chinese Radio Documentation Project's user manual written by Lennart Lidberg and annotated by Jim Unroe, KC9HI located here: http://wouxun.us/Software/Baofeng/Guide_to_UV5R_by_Lidberg_&_Unroe.pdf
All in all these radios are well worth the $32 I paid for them on Amazon. |
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| W2EM |
Rating:     |
2013-10-16 | |
| Great for what it is |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I bought a couple of these radios and they work well and you can't beat the price but it won't replace my Yaesu 8R nor was it meant to. It is not a ham radio but a commercial radio and is opened up to many other bands like FRS, GMRS, even fire and police so you have to be careful not to transmit on those frequencies. We bought a bunch of these radios for the people in our radio club (like 25) and it only took a few seconds to program 80+ frequencies in them with the programming cable and the "Chirp" software which is free to download.
You really should get a better antenna than the dummy load that comes with the radio. A Diamond dual band antenna can be purchased on eBay for $4 inc. shipping and makes this radio really preform.
It's hard to beat a dual band radio with a drop in charger, battery, etc. for $40 bucks or so. |
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| KE7FD |
Rating:     |
2013-10-13 | |
| Great, if... |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
There's been a lot of conflicting comments on these radios, from the very favorable to the complete opposite. What is just becoming better understood is there are multiple version of the firmware on these radios with incompatibilities that don't always play nice with the software out there. I tried using Baofengs published software and even using the "old" driver for the fake Prolific chip on Win7, but no joy. I had just bought the radio at Dayton so I thought the radio was defective especially when I saw two other radios took programming right in front of me. I contacted the dealer who after a few emails and guidance from him I had my UV-5R programmed. Here's what I learned: One of the things I needed to know as part of this was the firmware version of my radio. To find out the firmware level on your Baofeng, hold down the #3 while turning the radio on. The firmware version should display on the screen. If you have a USA349 then you need to use the software from the following link:
http://wouxun.us/Software/Baofeng/F11_VFO-MR_USA349.zip
Make sure you have the right driver for your cable and OS. Some folks report that Linux plays nicer than Windoze 7.
It's not as nice as my Kenwood HT but if this one gets trashed I won't loose any sleep over it either. I gave it a 4/5 because it's not in the same class as the high end HT's that come from the name brands. A $40 radio can't compare with a $400 on a 5 point scale on price alone. There's many factors to consider. That being said, I would NOW not have a problem recommending this radio to new hams as long as they used a PC to program it and replaced the antenna. All in all, you'll still spend $60 to pick this radio up but for a new ham or a "beater" to carry with you, this is the way to go. |
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| K0JY |
Rating:  |
2013-10-13 | |
| Bad news |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I know a lot of people have had good reviews on these things but I wouldn't want to put a lot of faith in it working for a long time into the future. Right out of the box the frequency entry display function on mine failed. It's junk. Save your money and get a good Japanese unit with a reputation you can depend on. |
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| KI6OSH |
Rating:      |
2013-10-11 | |
| One year..... |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
One year of ownership and no complaints whatsoever. Only 5 years of hamming so take that into consideration but this little cheap radio has done everything I could ask of it for an HT. Left it on the roof last winter and dropped it off the roof also, no damage. Luckily it wasn't raining and it fell into some bushes. Not too hard to program with some help from another ham. Tempted to buy another one just because. Mine was $42 and I hear they're even cheaper some places. Can't go wrong at that price. Get an add-on antenna and you're in business. What more can be said?
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Earlier 5-star review posted by KI6OSH on 2013-03-25
I've had this little radio since October 2012 and once I figured out the programming, with some help from another ham, it works perfectly. I've compared it side by side with my Kenwood TH-F6 and sometimes it will hear what the Kenwood doesn't! Sometimes it's the other way around. For the price, $52, a tremendous value. So far, no complaints and we'll see how it holds up over time. |
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| N4ZAW |
Rating:      |
2013-10-04 | |
| "Adorable!" |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
This may be too early to submit a review, but I'm just so impressed by this little gizmo! A couple friends have already purchased them and I've had the opportunity to try them hands-on. REMARKABLE! I totally agree with the last post in every respect. However, the issue of 'field-programming' ,while I agree 100% that the process is convoluted, is also "ritualistic",so it should become second-nature with the [i]required[/i] interest and time.
As for my first experience after battery charge-up -- I plugged mine into my buddy's HT and 'cloned' it... It took less than a couple minutes to have all the freqs and parameters generically-set for my location. Then, I went into the software package called [url=http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home]"CHIRP"[/url],and customized mine with my callsign at startup and some other neat little tricks. You will want to order a 5/8 wave whip for it, and marvel at it's coverage!! The packaged stubby is just like every other HT manufacturer's included antenna (which is junk).
I just ordered another one. At 32bucks a copy, is it worth 'crying about" if you don't like it? And if you don't, there is always the next hamfest 'tailgate' to sell it.
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| KC7YRA |
Rating:     |
2013-09-27 | |
| Remember how much you paid for it. |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I have had mine for a few months now.
I will not lie, there are several obnoxious problems with this radio.
It is difficult (if not impossible) to program by hand. The stock manual is absolutely horrid. They also feel cheap and poorly made.
The benefit is THEY ARE $32 SHIPPED TO YOUR DOOR!!! They are a cheap radio. If I had paid hundreds of dollars for the radio, I would have been upset at the shortcomings.
But at $32, it is an absolute bargain. True dual band, Part 90 certification, drop in charger, cheap accessories, and did I mention $32 SHIPPED TO YOU!!!
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| W1ZE |
Rating:    |
2013-09-27 | |
| Get what you pay for |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I have this transceiver for six months and its performance as a dual band HT is pretty good if you scrap the supplied rubber-ducky antenna and replace it with an aftermarket antenna. Like most HTs with a broad receive everywhere "band-pass" front end it is subject to intermod. But for under $60 I could live with that.
As reported by other reviewers, front panel programming is very tedious (not user friendly). The freeware computer software and drivers are a real pain in the fritter. Getting the darn program to run and talk to the transceiver requires a lot of keyboard work and com port setup. But again the HT sells for under 60 bucks. |
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