Great video! One complaint I have about this radio is its RX audio. It's kinda too "buzzy". I either keep my thumb on the speaker to suppress this "buzz", or use an external speaker.
Howdy Steve. Unfortunately, it sounds like many menu options only say "set", which isn't terribly helpful. One thing that a lot of these Chinese handhelds do that helps with eyes-free use is that they allow for direct numeric entry of menu parameters. For instance, menu, type in a menu number, menu, type in a menu choice number (say, 1 for simplex, 2 for plus, 3 for minus, or similar for CTCSS, sometimes allowing for full CTCSS tone entry, like 1035 rather than 12...or whatever...but either is acceptable.) This sounds like the voice that some TYT handhelds as far back as I can recall used. Those have the unfortunate aspect that the direct numeric entry is not available on some important menu options like offset or channel width or frequency step. This is generally not documented in the manuals, but I've definitely appreciated this feature on the Baofengs, Wouxuns, Puxing, and Quansheng UV-K5. It might be worth adding this to your testing in future, it would probably help y'all light dependents to do front panel programming faster than having to rely exclusively on scrolling through each menu. Pleaase do get in touch if this explanation is unclear.
Very clear - I /think/ I tried direct entry of the pl-tone, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm just glad its not a touch screen interface, those are pretty impossible to navigate by feel.
@@temporarilyoffline I was going to comment on the same thing. Dude, Ape, and HOAHam all had passing grades. Maybe just a QC issue. Luck of the draw? I have an RA89. But, who knows? I know, I know, always something. 🙂 Thanks Steve!
@@TomT73 Everything is now public beta. Even my Macbook Pro has stupid little issues. Doesn't matter how much you spend. I'm a cranky old man and I hate everything today. Get Off my Lawn!!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣 (joking)
@@LordGryllwotth Or, whatever circuitry goes to the finals has a wide range of spec - many may pass but a few will fail? Only conjecture, I have no idea.
I have one of these radios. I keep it in my go bag. Good battery life while in rx mode. Mine puts out 9.5 watts on .520 in to a dummy load. Great video
Is this a part 90 radio sold as a ham radio? Why are they including scrambling? Even if it's meant for part 90 scrambling is usually trivial to unscramble.
All of the recent radios I've reviewed include scrambling. I'm assuming they are adding features for more than just the US, and we get them and "shouldn't use them"
Nope. She does sound annoyed. Worse than Samantha, AKA the first Siri voice and voice of many text to speech enabled things, and she sounds like she'd rather be doing anything else.
nice fun with a HT. I have one like that but is a GMRS 5W version. water proof and floats ! bath tub test ! I bet if you test all 20 in the pack you get different results. The UV-5R like that . some do more watts some a little less. some dirty with harmonics some better. what I found from testing same radio from different people. them stock antenna's normally not so good. you can take the VNA and do a SWR sweep . see where the dip is. hurry up and get a MFJ dummy load with SMA . I got one for HT testing and it's great. think 15 watts up to 1.3 GHZ . it's small about same size as your attenuator but has only 1 port . 73's
4:50 I'm waiting for a radio that will help me understand Americans: a whole radio, precisely 10oz., an antenna of 1oz., and a battery of 4oz. I can see its equivalent whenever I hear about heavy radio equipment beyond a big puddle.
I have a couple of Wouxun radios, there nice but drain the battery when not in use. I place a post-it over the terminals and put the battery back in when stored for over a day. I got this radio as soon as it was announced. Mainly due the rugged use aspect. So far it has been exactly that.
I know it isn't what it is saying but at 7:09 it sounds like it says Bravo Sierra! LOL Shift sounds like Shi.....t as well! Looks like a funky radio to program! At least the voice feature is improving.
Ape, Ham Radio Dude, Ham Radio Tube, David Casler, HOA Ham, all tested this radio and found it clean. There is variation in production which means QC on this radio is not good. If I were you I would return your radio as defective and get a replacement. Everybody else reading this you can not just depend on TH-cam experts testing these radios you need to take responsibility and test them yourselves. >De KK7PRZ... 73
You don't even need to has a signal analyzer. I test my radios over the air with an SDR and attenuators. All you need is something that can show or measure relative power on at least a couple harmonics to get a rough idea of how dirty the output is.
Good points. I'm thinking about testing it on a better tester... is it my SA or is it the radio? hard to tell until more research. You're right though - definitely "trust but verify"... or just verify.
Also the power output you measured on the 2 meter band was too low, others have measured this radio at almost 11 watts on 2 meters. This indicated to me a defective radio.
@@TheHandyHam73 I bet if I put it into a dummy load I'd get more power and better SWR, but that was part of the point I was trying to show - lousy antenna from the factory.
Don't forget a built-in soundcard behind the usb-c for digital modes
Yes, it should be a defacto standard since the CM108 chip came out so long ago.
Great video! One complaint I have about this radio is its RX audio. It's kinda too "buzzy". I either keep my thumb on the speaker to suppress this "buzz", or use an external speaker.
Love the smell of new radio
yeah, me too!
Howdy Steve. Unfortunately, it sounds like many menu options only say "set", which isn't terribly helpful. One thing that a lot of these Chinese handhelds do that helps with eyes-free use is that they allow for direct numeric entry of menu parameters. For instance, menu, type in a menu number, menu, type in a menu choice number (say, 1 for simplex, 2 for plus, 3 for minus, or similar for CTCSS, sometimes allowing for full CTCSS tone entry, like 1035 rather than 12...or whatever...but either is acceptable.) This sounds like the voice that some TYT handhelds as far back as I can recall used. Those have the unfortunate aspect that the direct numeric entry is not available on some important menu options like offset or channel width or frequency step. This is generally not documented in the manuals, but I've definitely appreciated this feature on the Baofengs, Wouxuns, Puxing, and Quansheng UV-K5. It might be worth adding this to your testing in future, it would probably help y'all light dependents to do front panel programming faster than having to rely exclusively on scrolling through each menu. Pleaase do get in touch if this explanation is unclear.
Very clear - I /think/ I tried direct entry of the pl-tone, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm just glad its not a touch screen interface, those are pretty impossible to navigate by feel.
@@temporarilyoffline You're right about that! No Yaesu FT-3D for me. LOL
Interesting results on the TinySA. I've seen other reviews of the same radio and they were all spectrally clean.
I'mma run a test on a better tester when I get a chance.
@@temporarilyoffline I was going to comment on the same thing. Dude, Ape, and HOAHam all had passing grades. Maybe just a QC issue. Luck of the draw? I have an RA89. But, who knows?
I know, I know, always something. 🙂 Thanks Steve!
@@TomT73 Everything is now public beta. Even my Macbook Pro has stupid little issues. Doesn't matter how much you spend. I'm a cranky old man and I hate everything today. Get Off my Lawn!!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣 (joking)
@@TomT73so his radio doesn't have filters, but the other had?
@@LordGryllwotth Or, whatever circuitry goes to the finals has a wide range of spec - many may pass but a few will fail? Only conjecture, I have no idea.
I do like this radio. It's in my WinLink go bag, and works great with a Digirig. I am getting about 9.3w on 145.090. Mine tested clean with my SA.
Winlink would be a great use of this radio!
I have one of these radios. I keep it in my go bag. Good battery life while in rx mode. Mine puts out 9.5 watts on .520 in to a dummy load. Great video
I bet my radio would put out more power into a dummy load also. I don't know why they ship them with poor antennas.
So close, but not quite where it needs to be. Great video TO. Keep'em comin. 73's from KI5PRK
Next time!
Is this a part 90 radio sold as a ham radio? Why are they including scrambling? Even if it's meant for part 90 scrambling is usually trivial to unscramble.
All of the recent radios I've reviewed include scrambling. I'm assuming they are adding features for more than just the US, and we get them and "shouldn't use them"
Great review, nice lookin radio, tnx for all your hard work!
My pleasure!
Is it me, or does the chick in the radio sound like she’s annoyed when you press her buttons …. LOL.. Have a great weekend Steve…. Bill, KC2KNA
Seems normal to me... ;-)
Nope. She does sound annoyed. Worse than Samantha, AKA the first Siri voice and voice of many text to speech enabled things, and she sounds like she'd rather be doing anything else.
I have one, I like it, nothing fancy just rugged and bigger lol
Rugged and Bigger are good things!
@@temporarilyoffline waterproof too, and much better speak than my cheaper radios
nice fun with a HT. I have one like that but is a GMRS 5W version. water proof and floats ! bath tub test ! I bet if you test all 20 in the pack you get different results. The UV-5R like that . some do more watts some a little less. some dirty with harmonics some better. what I found from testing same radio from different people. them stock antenna's normally not so good. you can take the VNA and do a SWR sweep . see where the dip is. hurry up and get a MFJ dummy load with SMA . I got one for HT testing and it's great. think 15 watts up to 1.3 GHZ . it's small about same size as your attenuator but has only 1 port . 73's
I'm drowning in MFJ gear over here. Good stuff!
4:50 I'm waiting for a radio that will help me understand Americans: a whole radio, precisely 10oz., an antenna of 1oz., and a battery of 4oz. I can see its equivalent whenever I hear about heavy radio equipment beyond a big puddle.
I wish we could all agree on how to measure things... maybe time for a new standard.
I recommend Wouxun, as a cheap reliable radio.
Good idea!
I have a couple of Wouxun radios, there nice but drain the battery when not in use. I place a post-it over the terminals and put the battery back in when stored for over a day. I got this radio as soon as it was announced. Mainly due the rugged use aspect. So far it has been exactly that.
I know it isn't what it is saying but at 7:09 it sounds like it says Bravo Sierra! LOL Shift sounds like Shi.....t as well! Looks like a funky radio to program! At least the voice feature is improving.
At this current rate of evolution I predict another 100 years of Shi....ty radios.
@@temporarilyoffline just 100 years?😂
It sounds like a fake fcc ID because it is. No applications have been filed with that ID or anything similar to it.
Check out the FCC IDs in my UV-17R Plus video - two different models with the same ID. Nobody cares but hams.
@@temporarilyoffline darn it all to heck 🤣
The 1st thing you should do is turn the voice off. Holy...... it's annoying.
Right! Not good for light-dependent types like us.
Ape, Ham Radio Dude, Ham Radio Tube, David Casler, HOA Ham, all tested this radio and found it clean. There is variation in production which means QC on this radio is not good. If I were you I would return your radio as defective and get a replacement. Everybody else reading this you can not just depend on TH-cam experts testing these radios you need to take responsibility and test them yourselves. >De KK7PRZ... 73
You don't even need to has a signal analyzer. I test my radios over the air with an SDR and attenuators. All you need is something that can show or measure relative power on at least a couple harmonics to get a rough idea of how dirty the output is.
Good points. I'm thinking about testing it on a better tester... is it my SA or is it the radio? hard to tell until more research. You're right though - definitely "trust but verify"... or just verify.
Also the power output you measured on the 2 meter band was too low, others have measured this radio at almost 11 watts on 2 meters. This indicated to me a defective radio.
@@TheHandyHam73 I bet if I put it into a dummy load I'd get more power and better SWR, but that was part of the point I was trying to show - lousy antenna from the factory.