| VE2UM |
Rating:  |
2019-04-20 | |
| excellent, but check antenna |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Bought my KG-UV8D a few months ago and my first impressions were simply awful.
Mediocre sensitivity, highly noisy receive and baaad transmit.
Tested sensitivity on an Agilent 8921 and found an excellent -121 dBm, but on the air, awful receive. I suspected the Wouxun to be highly sensitive to RF noise and desentisization, having found similar Rx crap on another Mandarium radio: the Puxing PX-888
I've put my KG-UV8D aside, highly disappointed.
Finally, one week ago, i've made a more serious Rx test via a Narda 30 dB directional coupler and the load / antenna desensitization test.
Finally the UV8D showed excellent RF immunity, being desensitized by only 1 dB on an external antenna over a termination.
Finally, the ultimate test: An old analogue diode RF field strength meter !!! You guessed it: Nothing, Niet, Nada.
The antenna was defective !!! Replaced it by a UHF whip and finally recovered a real radio.
Excellemt Rx, solid Tx. I suggest it, at least on UHF. VHF tests to come when i'll have a decent dual band whip.
...If you purchase one, don't forget to test the antenna !!!
I'd give the UV8D a 5/5, but the antenna issue lowered my score to 4/5.
73 de Normand VE2UM. |
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| W4ZMJ |
Rating: |
2019-03-10 | |
| crossband |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| FROM THE REVIEWS PEOPLE DONT LIKE THIS RADIO ITS PRETTY GOOD ITS BETTER THAN SOME PREVIOUS MODELS OF WOUXUN THE CROSSBAND REPEATE WORKS GOOD FOR ME I USE THE BATTERY ELIMINATOR FOR THE RADIO WITH NO ISSUES IVE USED CROSSBAND FOR OVER A YEAR WITH THIS RADIO IN A VEHICLE THE RADIO DOSENT SEEM TO GET THAT HOT IT GETS WARM BUT NO ISSUE WITH IT LOW POWER IS WHAT I USE IF I CAN TO DO THIS BUT HAVE USED HIGH POWER AND TIME OUT TIMER SET AT 60 SECONDS NOW THE BAD THIS IS MY SECOND RADIO THE OTHER WORKED BUT THE DISPLAY WENT UPSIDE DOWN I USED IT UNTIL UNABLE TO AND I HAD IT FOR BOUT 3 YEARS THE CURRENT ONE I HAVE HAD FOR OVER A YEAR NO PROBLEMS THE RECEIVER IS OK BUT CAN GET OVER LOADED UNDER VERY HIGH RF AREA NOTHING LIKE A BAOFENG THO IT IS WHAT IT IS FOR THE PRICE |
|
| K7REX |
Rating: |
2018-06-10 | |
| Serious heat problems in Cross-Band Repeat mode |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| I wrote a raving report on 08-18-17 and now need to revise it. The radio has serious heat issues and will die when used in cross-band repeat mode on a busy frequency. I also tried the KG-UV8D Plus hoping it had improved, it hadn't - the same issue. I have since cut the power back to 1 Watt to get it to work longer. It's a bit disappointing if you had purchased this for a Cross-Band Repeat radio as I did |
|
| ZL4BKD |
Rating: |
2017-09-12 | |
| 2.5 |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
One phrase sums it up: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably won't measure up to your expectation.
The KG-uv8d promises a lot, and Wouxun's attempt to squeeze so many features into a hand held have come up short, in the long term anyway.
I have owned 5 of these for about three years, and used most of them on a weekly basis. While they all worked OK, with reasonably good power output, and with a decent antenna would punch out on simplex over 20km on vhf. From from the get-go features began playing up. From new one would restart itself two or three times in the first 5 minutes of operation, then would be fine for the rest of the day. Two of my more recently purchased 8D's had the backlight feature killed when I wire cloned them from my original 8D. Nothing would fix that. Not a factory reset, not a computer.
Two of them have dropped an entire bank of memory, so instead of the screen showing both banks of channels, one would show stored channel data while the other would only show up "Wuoxun kg-uv8d". A fresh clone bought them back once, then a few months later they were gone for good.
But the worst issue is that after several years, the tx finals went out....one by one, on all of them. Initially the vhf went so you could only transmit from, say one room to another, but uhf was fine for a few km, then uhf too died. Bottom line: I now own 5 scanners;) , not that their scanning rate is anything to write home about!!
In contrast, my two KG-UV6D's appear so much more reliable.
And to add even more contrast, my two 21 year old Kenwood TH 22AT's and my 20 year old Icom V82's still work as designed the day I purchased them:) |
|
| LAMBERTINOS |
Rating: |
2017-08-30 | |
| Does it perfect and cross band too! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Really enjoy the Wouxun KG-UV8D. It does it all. Double real VFO. And it even have it's own crossband capability. |
|
| KC1ELZ |
Rating: |
2016-09-08 | |
| Great UNTIL it failed |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I bought my Wouxun KG-UV8D less than 2 months ago. The manual is terrible for new hams who are unfamiliar with the jargon, and the manual programming has the operator hopping around the menu button like a toad on a hot road... IF you can figure out what the needed settings are for what one wants to accomplish with the radio. The Wouxun software did not display its information boxes well on my Windows 10 PC, leaving the info in the boxes half hidden on some of the tabbed screens. Once another ham and I got this radio configured and programmed and got me familiar with how to program repeaters and simplex on it, I was able to hit one repeater from my house using the stock RD antenna. That repeater became my FM anchor for 2 meters and a baseline for all comparisons as it was full quieting rx/tx between my QTH and the repeater. All went well until I took a trip and tried using simplex. I actually got a great mobile QSO in the southern part of NH, but after that the radio failed to accept or access repeaters. Several of us tried to troubleshoot the radio but I had to send it back to CheapHam. They said that they would warranty it and try to repair it... but that they are backed up 4-5 weeks on repairs. I had no choice but to buy a new one or mail it back under warranty and wait for CheapHam to decide what to do with it. So, now I wait to see if CheapHam will repair or replace this radio. |
|
| AD1ET |
Rating: |
2016-06-25 | |
| Well, A Fatal Flaw Perhaps |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I previously reviewed this radio after an initial programming and it was working flawlessly. Shortly thereafter the radio failed to receive on VHF channels. I could transmit and another radio would pick up the repeater squelch tail but nothing on the UV8D. Returned it to seller. Seller and Wouxun told me that there were parameters in the programming software I used that would essentially "brick" the radio. Not their fault in their opinion since I used Powerwerx download for the UV8D and not Wouxun download. I did a file compare and the two versions are identical. Armed with that bit of info, the seller refunded my purchase price. It should NOT be possible to enter programming values into a radios memory that will cause the radio to fail. I would not recommend this radio given the rather spooky behaviour I experienced. I have been programing Baofengs useing Chirp for two years with no problems. |
|
| OH2KEN |
Rating: |
2016-04-24 | |
| a nice liittle ht from China |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| I have had no problems with my Wouxun kg-uv8d. No squelch problem, no receiving nor transmitting problems. And I live in the capital of Finland just a few kilometers from the largest international airport in the country. It has never lost its memory settings. The casing is strong. The display is clear and logical. It came preprogrammed from the dealer in Finland with all repeaters needed on all bands it offers. Audio is very strong and clear. The smaller battery pack is good for a day of monitoring and some talking. And its dual band receiver is great. In my experience it is a very good multifunctional tranceiver for the money. Affordable AND good value. I will be getting a larger capacity spare battery pack though, also the AA battery pack and the battery eliminator for mobile use. The desktop charger is a little slow for my taste. Bluetooth would also be nice...but I am very satisfied with this little handheld tranceiver. |
|
| AD0AR |
Rating: |
2016-01-29 | |
| Good RX, dirty TX |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I bought this at a hamfest. It was a splurge buy.
I can't believe the RX sensitivity on this thing! I was using it to receive VHF police/fire frequencies in Illinois due to a car accident that snarled traffic, tossed it in the car, and when I got to my QTH by Iowa City, Iowa, I connected it to my 5/8 whip on the roof of my house and turned it on. While I was rooting around on the web for some repeater frequencies, I heard the squelch pop and I could still hear the Illinois police on frequency!!! Holy Cow! That is sensitive!
Now for the not so good.
This is the one deal breaker for me I HATE about this radio. You can only scan the active VFO. If you select a VFO to scan, as soon as you select the 2nd VFO, the 1st one stops scanning and vice versa.
Also the scan speed is rather mediocre.
I also looked at the radiated spectrum. On VHF it is not very clean. By all means my method of viewing the spectrum is not calibrated, but I used the spectrum scope on my IC-7000 and it is down right dirty. If it wasn't for me being already on the fundamental frequency, I would have been hard pressed to find it with all those radiated spurs!
UHF is much cleaner, but they were still present.
Battery life is good, but I noticed that the self discharge rate of this radio (battery ON the radio) is much higher than my KG-UVD1P and KG-UV9D.
The repeater function is awesome, but keep in mind you will need to use the programming cable/ software to access some of the repeater controller attributes otherwise as soon as the incoming signal stops, so does the TX so you may never know if you are actually keying the repeater unless you have a duplex radio.
Also to note: The KG-UV8D and KG-UV9D chargers are cross compatible between both radios. They can fit either one (yaaaay!) |
|
| AB3LW |
Rating: |
2016-01-25 | |
| on my second one. |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
about a year ago when these came out i bought one. it served me well til recently. when it developed a weird problem.
it kept dialing up 4s and 7s on its own. its still usable if i keep the keypad locked. idk what its problem is.
i just bought another one a few days ago, only because i have a lot of nice accessories for it. otherwise i would have opted for the alinco 500 at about the same price.
its good for a scanner, but if you intend to do any transmitting take a look at the alinco first.
one thing that im noticeing with the new one is that on overdeviated signals it distorts very badly ( yes i did have the bandwidth set correctly)
sensitivity on both of them is lacking, the uv5rs and the uv899s put it to shame.
my biggest complaint about it is that if go into the scanning mode that stupid dial light stays on..
my best advice about all of these ccrs in general is that they are ok for scanners. but dont take it out into a situation where anybodys life depends on it working.
but i am not completely dissatisfied though, as i sit like vulture waiting for them to close em out @50 usd. a fair price imo. |
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