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Reviews For: Leixen VV-898

Category: Transceivers: VHF/UHF+ Amateur Base/Mobile (non hand-held)

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Review Summary For : Leixen VV-898
Reviews: 37MSRP: 150
Description:
Tiny dual band vhf/uhf mobile transceiver
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
13373.4
KB0SFP Rating: 2023-05-11
Fair Little Radio But Cant Use Around HF Rigs Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I purchased several of these radios primarily because they are very small and they are cheap. I planned to install them in secondary vehicles like my golf cart, side by side, and as lunch box portable for use in vehicles not radio equipped. For the most part they work ok but there are some quirks.

Good:
Very small size.
Very cheap price.
Decent output power.
Fairly easy operation.
LOTSA audio output!

Bad:
Factory software is horrible.
Chirp software works, but not fully.
RF infiltration from HF radios is a problem.
Multi-function button on the front panel are a pain.
Mounting bracket and hardware are a joke.
Driver for the program cable was hard to get.

Just Annoying:
Volume up/down buttons placement on the mic.
The "dual watch" function.

The factory software is a joke. Chirp software works but does not recognize the radio's abilities(like 2.5khz frequency resolution). Between the factory software, Chirp, and uploading/downloading between the two a number of times over two days, I was able to save the a channel list and program all my radios.

RF infiltration from nearby HF transmitters is a problem. Primarily the volume settings changes, and/or the radios get very angry when a nearby HF transmission is made. Numerous ferrite beads on the mic, power, and coax cables did not help. The only thing that did help was to remove the mic. Use of the radio in my shack is near impossible along side the HF equipment. Same in the mobile.

Multi function buttons across the lower front panel of the radio can be programmed to what you want them to do. Nice, but you can never remember what you've programmed them for.

The mounting bracket is humorous, and the mounting screws are TINY!

I had to fight, and threaten, the seller to get the driver of the program cable. The one on their web site does not work.

There are volume up/down buttons placed on the outside edge of the mic. It is VERY hard to key the mic without changing to volume!

The "dual watch" function. In the beginning I thought something was wrong. Stations I was in QSO with were intermittent. This I realized it was the dual watch function of the radio. It was checking back to the secondary frequency for traffic and when it did, I would momentarily lose the one I was in contact with.

Dennis Starks
Military-Radio-Guy
KBØSFP
W3IRE Rating: 2023-01-10
Does not program well. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Have had this for over a year. Never could get it programmed. Very hard to do. Tried using Chirp. Frequencies upload but nowhere to be found on the radio. POS. Save your money. Buy something that works.
NC6J Rating: 2021-12-11
great for the price Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This model has been sold by Jetstream, Luiton and Leixen over the last decade, and looks like it just moved to HYS recently.

I got two of these a year ago, mostly to test some portable packet set ups. Now one of them is running a port full time on my packet node at home. The other one is still portable a year later, and it's talking on 5w to a node 70 miles away as I type this.

The upside: small size, can mount anywhere mobile, easy to program with chirp or the mic, can be powered with a laptop power cable, turnaround is fast enough and receive is more than sensitive enough for a TNC or soundcard interface, RJ-45 pinout same as kenwood.

The downside: the manual is marginally helpful. But it's an analog dual band radio, not a space shuttle, it's pretty easy to figure out in about an hour. Transmitting DTMF is not intuitive, must hit call twice, enter DTMF string, then PTT to send it.
MW0HRD Rating: 2020-05-27
Good Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
People are saying the radio stops working after a period of time. The radio has a lithium memory battery fitted inside change it. They don't last forever. Just a thought.
AB3VK Rating: 2019-09-23
Nice For The Price VV 898 Time Owned: N.A.
Decided to put a dual band in the vehicle. I did not want to spend a lot on something that might be stolen. Unit was packaged nicely. Pretty straight forward to manually program. ( which means I watched the you tube video ) 10 watts suffices for my needs. I received good reports on the audio quality from individuals I contacted on the repeaters. I mounted on center console so no issues with the speaker which is on top of the unit. If its mounted under dash, you might want to consider an external speaker. I noticed there is a version that now has a 4/10/25 watt selection (vv 898e) which I will probably replace my HT with for the home station. Its small and barely noticeable under my 10/12 meter radio which is also mounted on the center console. I am still in the honeymoon phase, if anything changes I will update. I value this board...it helped me with a lot of my HF equip purchases....73's
W5APL Rating: 2018-12-07
Nice Radios Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have both the VV-898 10 WATT and the VV-898SP 25 WATT-No problems, both work great-Very easy to set up-Nice audio on both rigs-Paid $49 for the VV-898 and $117 for the VV-898SP with the backpack. The VV-898SP is nice with the battery pack inside the case.
SP9HZX Rating: 2018-07-20
small and reliable Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Very good and compact.Ideal for mobile operation though I use it at home.too.
No problems with it.
KJ4DGE Rating: 2018-04-26
Good deal, Good price Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have to admit I wanted a little more power for local nets on 2 meters than a HT together with a outside antenna, so spent an extra 30 bucks for this radio after reading the Miklor site review. There are so many China brands out there now its hard to gauge what is worth the bucks but was pleased with my purchase from BuyTwoWayradios.com The rig has plenty of memory with 200 channels and is easy to program from the hand mic even without a PC.

This rig comes in a variety of flavors. A VV898 (10 watts), VV898S (25 watts) and even has an ad-on man-pack accessory with battery that lets you take either into the field.

The receive of the radio surprised me as its very good and loud and have gotten good audio transmit reports just running 10 watts. all in all a better way to go for a base rig that takes less space on your desk than a paperback book.

I give it a 4 only due to the fact the scan mode is painfully slow, but I did not buy it for a scanner :)

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Earlier 5-star review posted by KJ4DGE on 2018-04-25

I have the V-898S 25 watt version and am very pleased for the price and size. Where can you get a dual band mobile that can be man-packed into a portable 25 watt radio as an afterthought. It has very good receive and signal reports are great. The 10 watt version is really all you need in a car. As a base the radio takes up less space on a shack desk than a wattmeter and likely for less the price.
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Earlier 4-star review posted by KJ4DGE on 2018-04-12

I bought this micro mobile to replace a much older filing rig with few memories and no UHF. I was surprised at how easy it is to program just from the hand mike. It worked great on both VHF and cleanly on UHF. The 25 watt model gets me to repeaters I never thought I could hit from Leesburg VA. Forget the manual though. The menu button and up/down arrows on the hand mike are all you need to program this radio. Xmit reports have been very good and the audio is VERY loud at low settings. 200 channels is plenty and it covers 220 receive as well, whats not to like?
N1IDN Rating: 2018-02-10
You get what you pay for Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I may be a bit late for the party, but I bought 4 of these last year and only 1 is still working properly.

IMO, if you want a daily driver radio or a radio for the shop, something that is going to experience heat and cold and prolonged listening etc, this is not the radio for that. If you want one for a bug out radio (the one that still works), where you might fire it up from time to time and run it on a battery, they seem to work for that.

I am not downing the radio, just confirming that you need to set your expectations properly and realise that you get what you pay for.
K9PLG Rating: 2017-03-09
OK If you get a good 1 Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Got one @ Dayton 2016 to use as mobile (25w version). Seems to work OK after almost a year... Dual watch isn't really usable and the speaker / audio is not very good & hard to hear .. Needs a decent ext. speaker or headset to be heard well IMHO. I connect it to the line-in on my cars audio system sometimes and it sounds so much better than the little 1.5 inch speaker on the top.. Looks like their QA lets a few bad ones slip thru to market as so many have reported DOA units.. Guess I was lucky to get a good one that works FB so far. Chirp worked OK w/ the included programming cable.. Manual / factory software are 'marginal' at best, normal for Chinese products it seems...

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Earlier 4-star review posted by K9PLG on 2016-06-08

Picked up the 25w 898s model @ Dayton for $99. Seems pretty easy to manually program, the software that came with it is OK and works for me (have not tried to use chirp with it yet). Put it in my car to replace the 4w baofeng I had been using and it gets me into our local repeater where the baofeng would not when I'm behind a hill or in a low spot. People say it sounds good to them so I am happy with it overall. I like the small form factor, have mine mounted on a cup-holder mount in the center console, powered via cig-lighter plug, and am using a 5/8 wave mag mount antenna on center of car roof. It did seem to loose one repeater offset I had setup in a memory channel, but that was easy to manually fix.. Hopefully it won't do it again.