| K2TL |
Rating:  |
2024-08-05 | |
| Buy it! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| You need to upgrade the firmware to one of the free offerings on the internet. Plenty of YouTube videos on how easy this is. Also, join a users group. There are several on FB. Doing both of these and you will have quite an amazing radio for dirt cheap. I bought mine during a Prime sale for $21.00! You can spend more than that on a bad hamburger. Don't let the naysayers discourage you. Yes, it is Chinese. If that bothers you, and that is your right, then spend $400 on something else. |
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| VE5EDE |
Rating: |
2024-08-04 | |
| Not For Appliance Operators |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Baofeng changed the game with affordability by offering Handi-Hams, retired and fixed-income amateurs a chance to get on the air. Quansheng has now offered to up the ante with a radio that is somewhat programmable. It is not a difficult radio to operate or update if one is relatively literate and possesses some curiousity. These are attributes we as hams cherish, but not all.
Those who won't will blame the product of course. Now those who do not switch the radio into AM mode will of course discover uacceptable performance on the Air Band. No doubt not reading the manual will always be someone else's fault, hence one star. Amazing how snobbish hams are who have never built anything or experimented, and are in fact, offended by the very idea. As you read though these reviews on EHam, often one star is deserved. Other times it simply means some hapless appliance operator has purchased a radio that wasn't ready out of the box without an ounce of study. In many cases, they destroyed the equipment themselves moments after unpacking it, ergo one star. The next bunch will spend the next year trying to program it on the CB band, and that's another giveaway. And if that doesn't work, thinly veiled xenophobia rears its ugly head all too often.
This radio provides a new generation of hams as well as old timers with the opportunity to custom program the machine the way they want. I suspect this is only the beginning of a new era of ham radio. One can solder on a supleimentary board, or simply choose an easy software upgrade using your computer browser.
The internet is currently full of somewhat inconclusive data about this radio, so don't be deceived. YouTube is becoming notorious for guys expounding expertly at great length on these radios without a shred of data, so proceed with caution. If you can read and follow instructions, this will be the easiest mod ever, and you'll end up with an extremely versatile radio.
An excellent radio, easily as good as any of my expensive Japanese radios, and even better than a few. I will probably order some more to give to new licensees. At this price you can't lose!
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| G8UBJ |
Rating: |
2024-07-16 | |
| HF in a handheld for @ $30 ! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Quansheng produce several variants of this transceiver UV-K5 UV-5R UV-K6 etc and I have played with all of them. TX on 2M and 70CM its clean enough. I have modified a number of these for HF receive and to be honest you won't find a better HF/VHF/UHF solution that you can fit in your pocket and take on holiday
There are now quite a few firmware updates available which are easy to download and install. I use CEC_051.HF as it supports the HF mod but I have even seen one that works on SSTV!
The HF board is a bit fiddly to fit, but replaces the broadcast FM receive chip with 150K to 30mhz receiver (SI4732 - AM/FM/SSB/CW!). I have seen a number of firmware mods allowing TX outside of 2M and 70cm but I wouldn't recommend these without extensive changes to the PA filters. The mod boards are fairly inexpensive and the latest have improved audio for SSB/CW. I now produce my own with a single transistor audio amp with very good results |
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| G1HSM |
Rating: |
2024-04-12 | |
| I was impressed by my UV-K5 (8) |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
IMHO the Quansheng UV-K5 (8) is the best of the cheap Chinese HTs. I was so impressed that I ordered a second one, and two for fellow club members that wanted one. I bought the second one intending to use it for modified firmware, keeping one with the factory firmware, in case I bricked the modified one. However, I was so impressed with the Egzumer 0.22 firmware that I put it on both radios.
I bought both via AliExpress. Shipping only took four days to the UK.
I did a quick check of one using my TinySA spectrum analyser with the antennas rather than a direct connection. The output seemed quite clean, unlike my old Baofeng that was OK on 2 m but had lots of spurious output on 70 cm. |
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| W9CLL |
Rating: |
2024-04-06 | |
| Firmware upgrades aside |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| I have two of these as well as eighteen other Chinese HTs of various brands. While the firmware upgrade is a nice option, the radios are of poor quality. The AM RX is poor with the OEM FW and is made only slightly more useable with the various firmware options that fix the AM AGC. I consider Baofeng radios the bottom of the Chinese barrel with the K5's only marginally better. |
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| W1AEX |
Rating: |
2024-04-05 | |
| Well built and amazing opensource firmware development |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| Of all the Chinese handheld radios that have ended up in my backpack the UV-K6 which is also sometimes labeled as UV-K5(8) is one of the best. TX and RX audio quality is outstanding and the feature set is very customizable by flashing third party firmware that offers the features that fit your operating needs. I started with the egzumer firmware through v0.22 that is very easy to load using the Chrome web browser and it runs beautifully. I did migrate to the IJV firmware (v3.13) and love having 15 user configurable scan banks and RX bandwidth options from 25k to 2k with lots of increments in-between. The U3k bandwidth makes the air band AM reception perfect. I live close to an airport and the UV-K6 handles weak and strong signals very well without the distortion that occurs with the stock firmware. The radio is very easily programmed with CHIRPnext and the IJV loading module that is released with each new firmware. Note that CHIRPnext allows you to disable TX for programming non-ham receive-only frequencies such as NOAA or analog police/fire/ems services. The transmit harmonic content on 2m and 440 looks fine on my spectrum analyzer so this radio is light years better than the Baofeng disasters of the early UV5R era. I got my Quansheng UV-K6 for 30 bucks on Amazon with free overnight shipping included with Prime. Lots of YouTube videos demonstrate the performance of many of the well-known firmware images that are available for the UV-K6 family of radios. |
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| KK2DOG |
Rating: |
2024-01-07 | |
| WOW! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I just got the UV-K6 and I'll echo VE3TMT's sediments. Right out of the box I re-flashed it with the EGZUMER v0.21 firmware and this thing took off. Easy flash with either a Baofeng cable or RT Systems USB-K4Y cable. As an added bonus, you get a 220 MHz HT for a whole $30. Easy programming with Chirp too. |
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| KO4MOZ |
Rating: |
2023-11-27 | |
| Baofeng on steroids |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Shipped from China in < 2 weeks, out of the box works as expected. Chirp now supports it, so copying frequencies from my Baofeng plug was easy (OG hint: highlight all channels then copy at once). Like a Baofeng UV-5R on steroids with wide receive including AM Air, programmable SK buttons, USB charging, and compatible with most Baofeng accessories except battery. Will be field testing soon but so far impressed. Only 4 stars because it's not a high quality HT, but for under $30 it's a lot of toy! A github group making experimental open software for the UV-K5 is featured at https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/07/08/quansheng-uv-k5-multiband-radio-gets-experimental-firmware-to-work-in-the-18mhz-1300-mhz-bands/
Update: After playing with the UV-K5 a bit, I really like the open code integration by Egzumer with a tunable spectrum display, improved AM audio, display of name and frequency for each VFO, and long-press number keys for functions. I keep one on the bench as a poor man's spec-an, frequency counter, scanner, and U/V test set. I'd give it 4 1/2 stars for value but not 5 stars because of its RF hardware limitations: TX splatters RF, and RX overloads easily due to no front-end filtering. |
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| VE3TMT |
Rating: |
2023-10-14 | |
| Baofeng Killer |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
In my 30 plus years as a ham, I've owned my fair share of HT's, some expensive ones from the big three and a few not so expensive ones. The Quangshen UV-K5 is a home run.
Purchased on Temu website for $50 CAD including free shipping and it was in my hands in under a week. Upon first inspection, the radio seems very solid and is comfortable in the hand. Since I am using Windows 7, I am unable to download the latest version of Chirp, but the manufacturers programming software works fine. I had the local repeater programmed in quickly and was in the air. Both Rx and Tx audio are more than adequate.
Another feature that I've seen on |
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