List Price: $69.99
Sale Price: $39.56
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For a new ham getting into it for my city CERT program, this was just perfect for the price. The "standard" recommended was a much higher end Yaesu hand held which I tested out, and albiet at 3x the cost had some nifty features. But the UV-5RE was quite suitable, that is with the aid of the Yahoo group BaoFeng UV-5 and installation of the CHRIP software package which worked fine on my MacBook Pro.
I definitely recommend for those who are willing to work at figuring out the radio; as many others have stated the chenglesh manual is fairly useless. However if programming a TV remote control causes you consternation, I'd recommend the getting something with a bit more documentation, or better yet, a unit that others around you use and can help you get going with. This radio is definitely a DIY job!
Awesome delivery too...ordered it on Thursday night, was delivered the following Tuesday!
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Before I bought this, I asked on Amazon Answers what the real UHF RF output was in watts. I was told by two people that it was 4W. It isn't. It's two watts.I bought a UV-5RB several months ago and was dismayed to find that it had only 2W RF output on UHF, which was important because there are several UHF repeaters in the area (Mpls./St. Paul). Of course, the specs say that the output is 4W. It isn't. It's 2W, the same as the brand-new UV-5RE that I was told was 4W. The higher the frequency, the lower the output. GMRS, for example, is only 1.5W. 520 MHz is a mere one watt output.
I used a vhf/uhf meter (MFJ-842) inline with a ground plane antenna, so don't tell me that I'm not using the right meter. I'm a trained electronic tech. And, yes, the radio *is* on high power. Yes, I'm sure of that.
On VHF, the output is around 4.5 to 5W, so if you use VHF primarily then this is a good choice for you. The price is excellent.
A lot of people make a huge deal over the manual programming. It's not that hard. There are instructions on ham radio blogs that are much better than the manual, and it's fairly straightforward. You programme each channel twice: once for tx and once for rx. If you want to programme the ANI or name channels, however, you will need the software and cable. You can also back up the channels in a file on your computer this way.
There are also people who will tell you scary stories about the legality of these radios. They should be ignored. If you are not creating interference with licensed services, nobody will care about those things. The FCC is not going to hear you using this as a marine radio and say, "That sounds like a Baofeng! Let's get 'em!". The sad truth is that someone else has to literally do all of the investigation and hand it over (with documentation) to the FCC before they will even ponder doing anything. The reason that these radios are not certified is *political*, not technical. Anyone that tells you otherwise is fear-mongering, and they are only increasing the appeal of these radios to the worst elements. Telling those kind of people that they will go to jail only makes it more thrilling for them, especially when they find out that they don't get caught. Yeah, some people do if they interfere with licensed services for a long time constantly and intentionally. Spare us the scary links, okay?
Having said that, these radios will transmit across the band. You can easily cause interference with businesses, ambulances, fire services, etc. if you are careless. Transmit only on the frequencies you are licensed for, or those that do not require a license (marine, FRS, MURS). You can set the transmit frequency for MURS, for example, on weather channels and such. That way, if you inadvertently transmit, you will not interfere.
Add a magnetic mount antenna, and you have a nice mobile unit that will keep you company on long trips or your daily commute. Your range will substantially increase by using an external antenna because it's outside of the shielding effect of your vehicle, and the antenna uses the car as part of the antenna (ground plane). Even a sub-$15 mag-mount dual-band will do amazing things for you. You can also use a mag-mount indoors to increase your range over the attached antenna.
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