| W5BSJ |
Rating:  |
2014-09-28 | |
| Not a Tri-Bander |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
This is an excellent radio for the money. I use it as a ham and public safety band operator. It's receiver is more sensitive and selective than other similar inexpensive chinese radios. In my experience, the UV5R and UV82 both were inferior performers under real world conditions. The UVB5/B6 has several inferior features to those radios (fewer memory channels, fewer alpha tag characters, smaller screen, 5kHz minimum step, etc) but is an all-around better performing unit, especially under noisy conditions. I use Comet 24j and Smiley telescoping antennas which perform great, although the stock antenna is perfectly functional too.
The radio is not, however, a tri-band radio. It does "work" on 220 but it's receiver performance is terrible and the transmitter will interfere due to terrible 1st harmonic (in UHF band) and virtually no suppression. See Miklor's website for more details: http://www.miklor.com/UVB5/pdf/UVB5-220SpectralPlots.pdf
Do not use this radio in the 220MHz band. Use it as intended and you'll be thrilled with it's performance! |
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| OZ5ES |
Rating: |
2014-09-08 | |
| Very satisfied... |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I use my UV-B5 everyday, when walking my dog.
Used to have a UV-5R before, which I was also satisfied with, despite it's habit to hear car alarms, wireless weather stations and other strange signals in the Uhf band.
I do however miss two important(for me)features, first the possibility to change power with just one key, and listening to the input of a repeater, also with just one key. (Both things can be done at the UV-5R)
Still, at the price i paid, around 35 Euro, it's a great HT.
In DK we don't have 220MHz, but DO NOT try to run this one at 1.25M, it is NOT intended to run there:
http://www.miklor.com/UVB5/UVB5-220.php
Best regards Ebbe / oz5es |
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| K6HOM |
Rating: |
2014-06-20 | |
| UV-B5 - Can be a TriBander! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
The UV-B5 is an upgrade from my UV-5R for the reasons that others have previously stated.
I bought this HT for one reason, the UV-B5 Yahoo Users Group discovered that the 1.25M band can be accessed by this model, making it a tri-band HT. The latest version of CHIRP supports opening the range of this radio so that you can program 220 mHz repeater frequencies into the CHIRP table and upload them.
I did this and now my UV-B5 works well on 220. Beware, the stock duck antenna will not support this band. The Smiley 270A telescoping antenna does support 220 as well as 144/440 and it works very well on this HT. The 220 mHz output is less than the 5W for 144/440. However, I have had no trouble reaching 220 repeaters located 30+ miles away, standing outdoors.
What is nice is that the Baofeng speaker/mic and Baofeng USB programming cable for the UV-5R can be used with the UV-B5. However, the batteries and the charger docks are not compatible. I like the rotary channel knob on the top of the radio, but you can also use the Up/Down arrow keys to change memory channels.
For $32, I got a tri-band radio with charger dock. The tri-band antenna costs almost as much. Another $10 adds a speaker/mic and programming cable. What an incredible bargain! It even works great, too. I like mine.
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| VK3FORK |
Rating: |
2014-05-18 | |
| UV-B5 review |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Overall I am impressed by this radio , much more so than with the UV-5R . Has a good receiver , better audio and less background noise . THe receiver in the B5 is more sensitive so picks up weaker signals a lot better . A lot of people complain about the rotary knob for changing channels , but you can do it from the key pad . Manually setting up channels is very easy on the B5 , even duplex for repeaters .
Now for some complaining .
The keypad is small , a little too small making it a little fiddly to utilize .
The battery , the B5 sure does like to gobble up power , some one needs to make a bigger battery for the B5 ( NOW ! )
The LCD screen , in the menue the text is very course ( Low resolution ) making it hard to read .
?? Why would they do that ?
I paid $36USD shipped for mine , and for that money the B5 rocks , even though it has a few little issues .. Would I buy another ? I dont know , ask me after my UV-82 gets here .
I have both the UV-5R and the UV-B5 , which comes out on top ?
Neither ! Both have their positive and negatives , and neither comes out on top . ( over all )
The UV-5R has a lot of accessories , can take AA batteries ( after market adapter ) as well has a larger factory battery that runs for a very long time ( yes I have it )
For communications ( the act of communicating ) the UV-B5 is the better radio . For accessories the UV-5R comes out on top .
No buyers remorse on the B5 , its a joy to use , easy to program , and works extremely well . |
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| K3FHP |
Rating: |
2014-02-15 | |
| Grest Radio, Great Price |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| After using the UV-5R, a ratio only a theoretical physicist can manually program, I love my B6 radios. The form factor is nicer and it is easier to program than my Kenwood TH-6Fa, which I have loved for a decade. It honestly puts out 4W VHF and 3W UHF but that is plenty fr local repeaters. The Li-ion battery lasts a long time between charges and the extra coverage makes it a good VHF/UHF monitor. I imagine there would be intermod problems in large cities but there is at least some of that with all wide band radios and the use of PL on most repeaters these days certainly helps with this. A great value for a very usable radio. |
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| AB7VJ |
Rating: |
2014-02-14 | |
| Huge improvement |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have both the Baofeng UV3R and now the UVB5/6. This radio is a huge improvement over the earlier radios. The manual frequency programming is still a beast to deal with, but once I got it done, the radio works fine.
About the only complaint I have is concerning the alarm button; which also keys up the radio. Not sure why that is. |
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| K0INN |
Rating: |
2013-12-23 | |
| 5+ after fixing two issues |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I have the UVB5. It is solidly constructed and works great hitting all the local repeaters.
I like everything about it except for two things - the squelch is ineffective suppressing VHF noise/interference, and, there is no switch to turn on the back light. Both of these things really bugged me when I had the radio scanning the local repeaters. The scan would frequently stop due to the squelch breaking from noise. When the scan did stop due to receiving a signal, I could not see the repeater name or frequency in low light.
I resolved both of these issues.
1. I did a modification to the radio to use an unused side switch to control the display back light. You can find a link for this modification in the UVB5 Yahoo group. Basically, it involves running a jumper (with diode) between two locations on the circuit board.
2. I used the "test mode" in the Baofeng programming software to change the VHF squelch settings. The squelch settings go from 1 to 255. The settings I used are multiples of 23 and are 23,46,69... etc.
This is additional info in the UVB5 Yahoo group on both of these changes.
I'm now happy as a clam with this radio. It is so good I'm going to buy some more. |
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| W0ACE |
Rating:  |
2013-10-23 | |
| Worked good 2 weeks! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
OK, so I LOVED this radio up till tonight! Everything worked great, good audio reports, easy to program and use, nice size.
Tonight I turned it on and it has no power output. Nothing, 2m or 440mhz. Hi/low, factory resets, no change.
Sending it back under warranty tomorrow. Hopefully the next one will last longer. I have the mic, extra battery, antenna adapter, all left over waiting for another one! Will post follow up.
Was used about 30 mins total, purchased 10/2, received 10/7, today is 10/23. Have had HT's die in the past from Kenwood, and Icom, so, hopefully it's just a bad one, and the replacement will last forever! |
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| KN0JI |
Rating: |
2013-10-20 | |
| Great little radio |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have 4 UV-5RA, 2 UV-B6, 1 UV-B5, and 2 UV-82L HTs. On ebay I got all of these for nearly the same price, between $29 for the 5RA and $36 for the 82L. Among these, I will never buy anything but an 82L again, unless I can get it for a song. Not counting the 82L (because this is a review of the B6), the B6 tops them all, although it's a little difficult to tell the difference betewen features and performance between the B5 and B6.
Both the B5 and B6 brags 5W max, but at the fringes of my favorite repeater (146.76), about 32 miles, the B5 presents a little snow to the monitoring station, but the B6 is still full quieting.
The B6 is inexpensive and powerful, but its two biggest flaws are its size and its cumbersome menu. It feels like a toy, and I don't have fat fingers, but I'm constantly fat-fingering the B6 because the buttons are so tiny and so close together. The menus on the 5RA and 82L are essentially the same, and are very convenient and easy to use, but the B6 has a similar but rather awkward-to-use menu.
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| KK7TJ |
Rating: |
2013-10-20 | |
| UV-B5 - Improved over UV-5R for ham use |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have owned a UV-5R for 1.5 years and the Wouxun for 3. They are both good radios for the price. But this B5 is a wonderful little surprise! The menus are vastly improved and you can actually program it from the keypad! Both TX and RX audio are top notch... as good or better than any major brand HT's. The programming software is clear and easy. The manual is readable and simple. You can directly change settings of memories and the changes are persistent. You can save VFO to Memory simply by holding down the VM key selecting the target memory and confirm - kinda like a Yeaesu but easier. And you don't have delete an old memory before overwriting it. It has menu function shortcuts on the keypad.
The Dual-Watch actually functions like you'd want - and you can set it to TX on A or B or current! There are a few minor cons (99 memories, no lock, etc.), however this little radio provides great performance for a crazy low price. Got mine for $38 including shipping from Amazon. |
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