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Since the rubber duck antenna passes very little to zero RF on those harmonics, the end result in the real world is a bit better.

Very very interesting video and for someone just starting out in these radio's, Thanks for a excellent video.

I appreciate your review of the antenna and the needed repairs. What was ever better was watching your soldering techniques. Will done, it would make a great tutorial.

Thanks a million for this very informative video. It is super useful to a newbie like me with several new Baufengs and Quanshengs and a new Tinysa that I don't want to blow up. You are using a 10 watt 40 db attenuator for 5 watt radios, is that right? What attenuator or series of attenuators would you use for 10 watt Baofengs? Wattage and db? Anyway, thanks again for a really useful video for a new user like me.

Thanks for the vid. I Superglued around the inside lip of the boots; they've stayed on since. Tho' I mainly used the mount (with a 3/8 x 24 adapter) for mono-band hamsticks. I keep the HF-008 in the truck as a backup antenna, but it's a pain to tune and has poor-to-average performance. I don't recommend it.

If both radios are technical the same and both fullfil 60dB requirement ... what makes the GT-5R that "legal" ??

Hi @KC4NWK! I can't decide what to buy TD-H3 or TD-H8. What do you think?

About 26:30 when you overlaid two boards it had shown a visible difference. I was looking at this with a large screen TV or I might not have noticed. The uv17 had more turns on a few of the coils. Enough turns that they barely fit on the solder pads. The uv17r clearly doesn't have as many turns. The fact that a little more inductance might help to fix these other radios might be worth reviewing this further. Also if you follow down at the row of coils on the left of these boards you'll notice a component missing below them on the uv17r, likely a compacitor.

Can a saved program be uploaded to a new radio?

After testing the 5 ham versions I purchased, I suspect the copies you received were cherry-picked to meet your emissions testing. All of mine, purchased at different times, failed the low power test on 2-meters, and one failed the high power test on 2-meters. The best I got on low power was -14.2dBm, with the worst at -9.1dBm and only -37.6db down from the fundamental; all failed on the second harmonic. On high power, the one that failed did so at -14.1dBm on the third harmonic. I also returned 1 or 2 for even worse emission issues on low power and one had a defective on/off switch (not well defined detent).

I'm sorry but given how BADLY these emit 2,3,4,5th harmonics I can't see how they can be legally sold in the US! I just picked up a UV17R that I'll be returning because of this. <groan> N7GHI

Thanks for the excellent tests of yours. Just my 2 cents here... Two power settings is great, perfectly right in a handheld with a maximum power of only 5 or 6 watts. Three tx power levels is useful in high power radios. My vhf radio has three levels at 7 dB steps, 60w, 12w and 2.4w draining around 9A, 4A and 2A respectively measured at 13.8V. Minimum Tx power drains more than 25 watts for less than 2.5w RF power, at a ridiculous efficiency of less than 10%, more precisely only 5%. Efficiency is around 50% at full power, but at 20% is quite poor at mid power. At low power efficiency is only 5% which is very-very poor. Three settings at maybe 6dB steps (instead of 7dB), in a 5w handheld that is measured 6w (tx power depending on battery state), would result in 6w, 1.5w and 0.37w. At a 7dB step firvactwo power levels, a 5w handheld would output 1w at low power, which I consider a good change saving battery while giving away only 7dB. Three power settings at 7dB steps would have a low power of only 0.2w, while probably draining the same amount of battery than at 1 watt. It's not very wise to go from 1.2w towards 0.3w or less, 6 or 7dB below 1w of RF power, while draining at 0.3w the same amount of power from the battery than the battery power needed for 0.6 or 1w of RF power.

What does clean mean? Maybe you should start there

My new uv 5r has 2024 in the serial number

Could be dirty just because its old?

Ferrari owner reviews a VW bug 😕

Lol I haven’t pushed the send button since I purchased it.

I have a pair of UV-17R that came with firmware 0.01. Useless. In your travels did you find a way to upgrade the firmware on these units? Baofeng support said NO but I don't give up easily. This version can't xmt on ham bands but I think starting with 0.08 the radios do! Along with other functions.

What is the website ? I can’t find it Thank you

Very nice review! I would be interested in a video with a list of radios you have tested that you consider spectrially clean.

why would you even put a $35 radio on an anylyser? did you put your baby monitor or garage door opener on the test also? How about your cell phone? send them to me if you just cant stand owning it Ill share them with real people who would enjoy them. Tom W8FIK

That's great! We always wonder if a radio is what is says it is. 👍

As a noob just starting into amateur radio I was looking for a radio to dip my toes in with. From the get go I want to be clean transmitting and this video has helped me. I now know what not to buy.

You're a bit too narrowly focused on the 2m harmonics issue. For $29-$30, you get a tri-band, fully unlocked radio that can clone another radio's frequency and tones with 1 button press, includes a scramble function (not real encryption of course, but it'll keep neighborhood kids from understanding what you're transmitting), its tough, expendable as its so cheap, transmits higher power than most HT's which are limited to 5 watts, and has a large battery with USB charging. Kind of an unbeatable value in my book.

I got the AR-5RM Problem solved and I can pick up aircraft transmissions. Awesome little unit

Why do mental midgets focus their attention on matters of such insignificance?

Tidradio is hands down leading the HT race, only company I've ever seen to listen to the consumer and make updates to improve their radios.

Nice viedo. Have a question. I have bought new UV-17E, if the radio is on, it drains the battary in 5-6 hours even without any transmitting. Do you have any idia? The batttary charges in 2-3 hours with ca. 2400mAH.

Maybe I missed it. Were you testing in Ham mode, or Normal mode?

Having worked in manufacturing for 31 years, im skeptical that Tidradio didnt just cherrypick 3 good radios for you to review. Id love to buy several of these but the first test results are very telling of normal quality in my experience. Hope im wrong.

I have a 5RM and have tested it for harmonics and found it to pretty great tbh, I think you may have got a hold of badly built one, or of course, I got a better built one. Either way they are cheap and most buying them seem to have issues even programming the damn things lol

Constantly saying uh is a little, uh, distracting. Your videos, uh, are, on the whole, very good and, uh, informative, except for this, uh, one little, uh, annoyance.

For $30 to get a tri-band that can Rx on all those other bands vs just a GMRS only radio seems a decent use case to me. Eg) use it legally with a GMRS license (and FRS), and never touch the PTT when listening on the HAM ranges. Harmonics issue solved, and you end up with a lot more listening functionality vs the identical chip in the 5G PLUS model that is GMRS only. Right? Or will it even suck on harmonics in the GMRS frequency ranges? Newbie here, so please dont scream at me 😅

The UV-21 got cleaned up months later.

Sounds like a sad ham. Baofengs aren’t for you. Channels that don’t review radios properly and just say “it’s a cheap Chinese radio, let’s put it through a test which the FCC doesn’t certify on and say it’s bad.” Will never grow. Bet you if you tested it properly, like the FCC tests it, you would find it performs just fine. They build them to pass FCC regulations, not an out of regs test. Videos like this are why many small sad ham channels will stay at 1k subs or lower.

What a b word

Alway this panic about harmonics. Bad harmonics on a base station you only use at home can be a problem in a city or village, but these radios are made for moving around off road, in the woods, moutains or desert. Harmonics are no problem in this case and no one will call the FCC and cry about it. Just don't use it as your main radio at home every day.

Hey thanks for the information! So are they any better now? How much do I need to spend and what should I get as an "acceptable" radio? thanks really appreciate it

Excellent presentation.

I have 6 in cart. How do you know if these are the updated ones. Is there a batch number or date that determines?

I have 6 in cart. How do you know if these are the updated ones. Is there a batch number or date that determines?

What does this even mean to Joe User? Why should I care about this?

Excellent Video 🖖

I like the crystal looking h3 versions,it would be cool if they would make the extra battery's also in crystal caseing.😁 It's not easy for a disabled person to read always the small displays ,Im wondering also if they have a option in the Menu to make the writings bigger or some other options.🤔

Another TH-cam says the GMRS version isn't as clean as ham version. Wonder if there's any truth to that? He felt they may additionally filtered.

In Europe minus 60 db for the first harmonic is required.

jsut looked up on amazon in canada. we have the baofeng uv-5r updated version under the name "baofeng 5rx" i wonder if they changed the name to avoid confusion

You do actually have to charge the battery before any power on comparisons. The UV-25 gooseneck antenna actually works better that the other one. I have 2 of the 25's.

TDA2822 is an audio output amp (stereo). I think they are using both channels in a mono "push pull" configuration for higher output. (just a guess) 73 OM

UV - 21 Cannot receive and transmit in the range 150.0000 MHz -160.0000 MHz.