Medina—August 9, 2012✓ Verified purchase
ok, so i been looking for a radio to transmit for a while... and i found this little radio in amazon! so i bought it! what i have found about this radio!? 1. Its a little great radio! strong and rugged 2. receives very clearly and transmitted pretty darn good! 3. programing this radio with the computer is a major hassle... if you dont have experience dealing with ham radio, well in the programming part is a major problem 4. manual programming of the radio is a little bit complicated if you dont have any experience... for my luck my uncle is a veteran dealing with this kind of equipment and for him was no problem. 5. the manual suckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkssss! so why the heck i give this radio a 5 stars? b/c after you are available of over passing the programming issues... wich youtube definitely help you wont have any problems with this radio! and you will find that this little radio rx and tx dual band uhf and vhf 136-174.999 and 400-474! and the quality for the money is great! distance of tx? well i program my little radio to rx and tx to a repeater 25 miles away and it works extremly good! receive emt, police, Civil defense, emergency frequency! its pretty awesome! wp4bbs out! update! so i tought the radio was good but not super great! but just last night i discovered that one of the repeaters that 30 miles away from my base point, that i been trying and wondering why the radio doesnot enter to it! finally did it! actually it was doing since allways! is just that in rpt ste option in the radio you have to raise to 5 o #6 option or you will never now if the radio has the power to reach the repeater! i love my boafengs! Read more
Matthew Sevier—September 23, 2016✓ Verified purchase
I've only had this for a couple weeks now but I am impressed. This is an incredible bargain for what you get. I have a Yaesu FT-60R, but it's in storage and I wanted to see how this would work for me. Is this radio better than the Yaesu? No. This radio is not as well built, and the menu system is more cumbersome than the Yaesu's, which is somewhat of a pain too. That said, the UV-5R is a fantastic radio which I will definitely recommend to any new ham who may not be ready to spend a bunch of money on a single radio while they get a introduction to amateur radio, and may want to save up for a DMR ready radio next, or even save up a bit more and get a good HF rig. If you do buy this radio, and don't know someone who has a programming cable for it, be sure to buy one at the same time. I also have the little Baofeng speaker microphone and am really happy with that as well. One feature I love about the UV-5R is the commercial FM radio reception feature. This little radio has quickly become one of my favorite pier fishing accessories. I can monitor the repeater I want, and listen to music at the same time. The led light feature is also nice for finding my way in the dark. I can't speak to the battery life yet, because I have never had mine die yet. I frequently leave the FM radio on for hours and there's barely any decrease on the meter. The charging cradle works fine, but is a loose fit. I don'r have a charger for the car yet, but I hope to find a decent one soon. With such a low price, you should have a few bucks left over to buy a couple accessories and still have less than $50 invested. That's a steal for a great basic setup. Read more
Dash Riprock—August 26, 2013✓ Verified purchase
This is an update to my review. This radio features an alarm. When the "call" button is depressed for more than 2 seconds the unit will go into "Alarm Mode". An internal alarm will sound, the flash light will blink-and disturbingly the radio will then TRANSMIT the alarm on whatever frequency was in the top VFO. I suspect this was intended for other markets as a duress alarm. This is not legal in the USA for any service and should be disabled at the factory. This is a dangerous source of QRM we do not need! With that in mind, this is still a great radio for the price... This is my original review: I have been a licensed Amateur Radio operator for 25 years, and in that time have had several 2 meter HT units. I have not been active for a few years, having divested myself of my equipment. I recently and quite by accident discovered the BaoFeng UV-5R for sale on Amazon. I was intrigued by the $31 price. I read some of the reviews and decided to give it a shot-what could I loose, $31 is not a lot of money these days. First of all, despite opting for the free shipping, the radio arrived within TWO DAYS!!! Wow! Secondly, I was amazed at the quality feel of the unit. It seems rugged and well made. The radio was easy for me to get going. I was able to program the amateur radio parameters quite easily from the MENU function. You do not need a PC interface for this. It is intuitive. The radio features an FM broadcast band receiver-a nice touch. It also features a 2-function bright LED flashlight. I suspect this is offered as an Amateur band radio due to its not being FCC-type accepted. It will transmit on all the VHF and UHF frequencies. I suspect it has uses in other countries in the various services. It is not legal to operate this outside the amateur bands, even though it is possible. This is a nice little radio and for $31, you cannot go wrong! By one for yourself, the XYL, the kids and even the dog! Read more
