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Reviews For: Wouxun KG UV8D

Category: Transceivers: VHF/UHF+ Amateur Hand-held

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Review Summary For : Wouxun KG UV8D
Reviews: 25MSRP: 169.00
Description:
V/UHF Handheld Txcvr - Dual reveive 135-175 MHz & 400-520Mhz, although these frequencies vary in different parts of the world
Product is in production
More Info: http://wouxun.com/Two-Way-Radio/KG-UV8D.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00253.1
ZL4XYZ Rating: 2014-10-11
Great wee handheld Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Great wee radio. Does everything and more my KG UVD1P's do, other than;

The band does not go high enough to listen to the rozza around here.

With the std battery the life very limited. I ususlly only get 7 hours while the UVD1p's last all day.

The real dual band listen is good. The cross band repeat works very well. I do however tend to grab a UVD1P and leave this in the shack when I am going out hunting or on the motor cycle.
W2LA Rating: 2014-09-21
Just What I Was Looking For Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
OK- It's probably not the most well-built of all the HT's out there-but it was $129 and has a 18 month warranty so I'm not worried about it. But it has something completely new and differant that most of the HT's out there don't have-- A BIG,BEAUTIFUL DISPLAY. HT's are known for being SO BORING to work with. Simple amber or blue display that you practically have to squint to read. The people at Wouxun fiqured out we not only want to communicate but we want to be entertained! Large, full colored readable S Meter and frequency display that just looks great and is easy to read. The battery that comes with it lasts almost 24 hours with the backlight always on! It also has cross-band repeat(who else has that?) and dual band receive and has most the other options that the more expensive boring HT's have. I've had nothing but good reports. So let's hear it for Wouxun for stepping out of the box-- I'm absolutely sure other companies will have no choice but to follow.
VE6BGM Rating: 2014-09-17
Just OK Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
While I don't have the Version 1.05, I still have trouble saying it is as good as one from the Big 4. I find the volume output not as strong as previous Wouxuns and not as good as something like the VX-6 or VX-150, or FT-60. It is better than some of the other Wouxuns in having true dual receive [although the volume on each band is not separately controlled like TH-6, VX-8]. Like other Chinese transceivers, the scanning is like a sloth/turtle. Does have the same number of memories as the FT-60, but no air band receive or 220, or higher than 500 mhz. I didn't buy it for the FM broadcast. Can't comment on battery life as I haven't had it long enough. The optional 2600mAh battery is nice. Not sure if an AA pack is available. Programming with front key pad is workable but slow. Downloaded some of the suggested software and all this did was mess up the channels every time I added more frequencies. Got fed up and downloaded the RT software and never had a problem. Have not tried the cross band repeat, but really don't see the need with 5 watts. Display is nice and clear, easy to read. Stock antenna is as good as aftermarket, at least for my use. It is much better than TYTs but I can't compare it to Baofeng. Overall, it is a slight improvement on other Wouxuns but the poor volume doesn't make it over all any better. It is far from the ideal amateur radio hand held.
KH6TA Rating: 2014-09-17
Wow! Even better than expected! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have had the 1P, 6D and now the 8D, and after my first 72 hours with it, I love it!

I seriously think that the major 3 manufacturers of much more expensive HT's finally have some real competition from Wouxun. I compared to the Baofeng UV-5RA and UV-82L and it beats them out solidly by a very large margin in every area I considered important.

This radio is comparable to the KG-UV6D in performance, but has a different very ergonomic design and more features. Programming is so easy that a gecko could do it.

The soft blue background and bold black icons and numbers are easy to read on the new larger display, just make sure you are buying one with firmware V1.05 as of 9/2014 and you will be one happy camper!

Shop a little on EBay, I found this one from a reliable seller for only $129!

LISTENER007 Rating: 2014-09-03
A wrap-up on this Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
In all honesty...

I'd have to say that the UV8D is ok but not outstanding. I don't really think this radio can truly compare to some of those well known and trusted brands in just about any way you care to try comparing them. The build quality is ok, even quite good but it's very easy to have a plastic cover that looks tidy and as I said above, this unit is quite plasticky. I suppose most hand held's are nowadays but the UV8D is quite so, and feels like a toy.

It does however, transmit very well and with its standard antenna it hits many repeaters and gets through as good or even better in a few cases, than my other hand helds do. Its TX ability is definitely a plus feature. It also receives very well as far as sensitivity goes and the audio is very good indeed, but, as suspected previously, the radio does suffer from a few unwanted interference type characteristics. It does pick up quite a few full strength carriers that none of the others do, obviously internally generated, and I mean "quite a few". It also seems to suffer some sort of interference where on a few occasions, it sounds like an adjacent frequencies wants to come bursting through but on inspection, nothing is actually there. The squelch setup is a bit hard to get used to. I personally hate it. All my other radios have the same squelch, whereby a signal will simply burst through the squelch threshold and you hear it as per normal. On the UV8D however, anything that comes through, slowly rises from nothing to a full strength signal when coming through and this takes about a second to get to full strength, EVERY time. This I personally find horrible, both in terms of design and audibility. It plain sounds horrible, just like someone is turning the volume up each time you get a signal. Another feature I noticed is the when displaying dual receive and transmitting on one of them, on a few combinations of freuqencies, when you transmit, it interferes with the other. One of these combinations just happens to be my favourite two repeaters, one on 2m, the other 70cm. Tx'ing on the 2m frequency while also receiving on 70cm cuts out the 70cms frequency for an instant then it slowly comes back in,, you know - as in the squelch thing again only slower...

I have to say though that this radio is full of features and even though the software menu system is a bit long winded, it is very capable and could have been so much nicer if the above was addressed. The screen turning itself off all the time too, is a pain in the rear, even if you can set it to time-out at up to 20 seconds, that's far too short-a-time. Maybe a minute or so, or maybe if they had set it to 5 second increments instead of one second. I have switched this feature off and the screen stays on permanently. It's just too annoying. No more LCD screens on a hand held for me.

To wrap it up, I think you still get what you pay for but for the little you pay on the UV8D, you do get quite a few features and a good handful of bang per buck, but, it still needs a few more years under the belt for this lineage to be in the big boys league. The UV8D is potentially a great little radio in the making, not spoiled, but marred by a few little niggles that can really be annoying to many of us. If rhis only happens in some or a few of there 8D's then it show some inconsistency in their production but if it happens to all, then it means it just needs time to be gotten over by better design in future models...

I'll stick to my original 7.5 out of 10 for this one... E.O.S...!!!

Cheers...