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Reviews For: Alinco DJ-MD5XTG

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

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Review Summary For : Alinco DJ-MD5XTG
Reviews: 1MSRP: $180
Description:
Alinco HT with APRS, DMS, UHF/VHF, sort of an AnyTone knockoff
Product is in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0012
KK7AWK Rating: 2022-01-21
Software structure makes this radio hard to use. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
For the one repeater I've managed to program into it, I've gotten great reports back, which shows me the potential of the radio. When someone pops on the frequency the radio is plenty loud in my car (there is a loudness setting in the software). It all works as advertised, or at least I think so.

It's a Windows-only kind of radio. So being a Mac fanboy for the past 34 years, I had to really swallow hard to buy a Windows laptop. Yeah that didn't help. I could run the software but no joy updating the radio with it. I probably don't know what I'm doing, but the menu structure of the radio doesn't help at all. I programmed my IC-7100 with ease, and that was my very first ham radio.

So it has potential, but is hampered by the software structure. Some have said the DJ-MD5 is easy to program, maybe it is, but when you get the XTG suffix added to it, it might change a few things. I doubt it, because all this is supposed to add is GPS for APRS but I'm darned if I can even get that far. I wanted to try DMS as well, but just getting on one analogue VHF repeater has been a challenge.

This is my first ham HT. I've had GMRS radios in the past and well, they don't really need programming for the most part. If I were to do it over I'd probably try an Icom HT since my 7100 was such a breeze to program. But they're three times the cost (as long as you don't factor in the cost of a Windows laptop!).