Baofeng UV-5R Two Way Radio Dual Band 144-148/420-450Mhz Walkie Talkie 1800mAh Li-ion Battery(Black)

The Baofeng UV-5R is a really amazing radio for the price. Right now, I own 5 Baofeng radios, with the oldest purchased in 2016, and none have ever failed. I didn't really need another Baofeng radio, but for $16 + tax, I couldn't resist. I highly recommend Baofeng UV-5R to anyone who is new to amateur radio, or just needs a backup. Programming is easy using free Chirp software. The transmit and receive audio is clear and the transmit range is good with the 5W output.

These new Baofeng's come "locked" in such a way that you cannot transmit on GMRS frequencies unless you know how to unlock them. A quick search of the internet and you will find an instructional video on how to unlock the ability to transmit. However, in order to legally transmit on certain frequencies, you need a GMRS License. (At least you do, in the USA.) You can get a GMRS License by paying a fee (just search the internet for how to get it) which makes it legal for you to broadcast on GMRS frequencies, for 10 years. (and includes immediate family members) No test is required, for this particular license. You'll need to use your Call Sign to transmit on Repeater Frequencies. Range is amazing for the price point of this product. You can easily reach one mile with crystal clear voice communication. Up to two miles with good line of sight, and possibly further with a longer antenna and good line of sight. You can program these radios with Channels for FRS/GMRS using a free app, called CHIRP (Search the internet, the danplanet website). You will also need to purchase a USB Programming Cable, to do so, which can be found on Amazon. Easy enough to do, using Windows or Mac, but Linux might be a little tricky as Ubuntu and related variants may have an issue related to the 32-bit libraries needed by CHIRP. I have purchased the higher power 8W Baofeng radios but I find that I mostly use this 5W model, as it is smaller in size and performs well enough, in comparison to higher power radios. For vehicle to vehicle communication, I run a smaller aftermarket antenna (from Amazon) which helps me only to pick up signals transmitted within a ~1 mile range. Just be sure to abide be your local laws, before transmitting. You can listen, legally. FRS requires no license but has a 0.5 Watt limitation, to transmit. These radios operate from 1-4 Watts. So, even at the lowest RF Setting, you're going to be over .5 Watts. Hence the reason they are "locked" from transmitting, from the factory. I would highly recommend these radios to anyone who is looking for quality 2-way communication, near or far, in an affordable package.

This little radio is extremely powerful and has a great battery life (multiple days of standby power if you enable power saving mode and don't transmit) and it has a removable antenna so you can attach something like a Nagoya, Yagi, or custom coaxial antenna to it. If you buy the extended battery or even just another standard battery, you'll have more battery life than you know what to do with, unless you are constantly transmitting with VOX or you're constantly listening to FM radio with the volume turned up! The stock antenna is pretty good compared to the other more expensive Baofengs, but upgrading to a nagoya NA-771 removes a ton of the faint background hiss on both rx and tx, as well as increasing the tx range quite a bit. From my bench, I couldn't really pick up any additional FM radio stations when scanning through the entire FM range using the Nagoya vs the stock antenna, but what I did notice was that every single station came through crystal clear after swapping the antenna, whereas before it would pick them all up but some stations definitely had poor reception unless I would walk all around the garage looking for a good signal path. It has quite a few nice features but nothing digital, and doesn't have true dual watch monitoring, but with TDR turned on for me I'm able to monitor two frequencies and pick which one I care about more so if they're both active it will let me listen to the "preferred" frequency. It has dcs and ctcss codes for accessing those repeaters, and supports DTMF codes for dialing into Internet relay repeaters or echolink repeaters. As far as ease of use, you will need the manual to decipher the different options in the settings menu. There are some websites out there that give a more detailed breakdown of the menu options and their descriptions, as well as youtube videos to demonstrate more complicated things like programming or connecting two Baofengs to make a mobile repeater. Both of those capabilities require a different cable, not included. Finally, regarding programming, you DO NOT need to get the programming cable as you can do everything right from the radio. If you want to look up different frequencies of your local repeaters and store them in the memory channels, you can do that pretty quickly and easily right from the radio once you learn the flow. Where the programming cable comes in handy is when you want to add a hinge number of pre-programmed channels to the radio, but IMO there is no need for that. I tried it with all the virginia repeaters and found that only 1 or 2 ever had any traffic, even when I would go driving for hours and leave it on channel scan mode. Where I think the programming cable would come in handy is if you routinely traveled out of state (like from the east coast to the west coast) and you had a different set of frequencies and repeaters and settings for each location that you wanted to be able to swap between easily. When you go to the west coast you can just backup your east coast profile to save any changes you made or any new frequencies you saved, and then restore the west coast profile so you're able to make changes and save any new frequencies you find there. Then when you're ready to come back, just save the west coast profile to the computer and restore the east coast profile.

A nice intro to HAM radio device. Near unbeatable price, and a classic. While the battery power could use an upgrade, this is also easily replaceable with many options on the market. As it's an entry level radio, the range is expectantly short and if you plan to use this for more than intro/exploratory purposes I would recommend either a different radio or at least an antenna replacement. You do NEED a license in order to operate this radio but you do NOT need one to just listen in. Otherwise, buttons, input, and menu screens are relatively self explanatory and easy to use.

Produto muito bom. Funcionou perfeitamente.

muy buen producto, el alcance que tiene es muy bueno, yo lo uso en montaña y por lo menos al día de hoy 2 km si se da sin problema, no los he usado a mas distancia pero no dudo que se puedan enlazar pues a 2 km se oye bastante bien, sin nada de interferencia. muy recomendables

Muy buen radio, se empata con cualquier walkie talkie

buen alcanse para actividades al aire libre

el radio es un equipo muy economico con una excelente cobertura de frecuencias , de facil funcionamiento, en su empaque viene todo lo que debe de traer como : Bateria, clip, cintilla, antena, handsfree manual, garantia y el radio. de ahi en fuera el equipo es de un tipo de plastico que por el terminado se ve economico se ve brilloso es muy sensible a las transmisiones de otros equipos ya que si transmites con un equipo distinto y en distinta frecuencia el Baofeng lo detecta. no he probado la distancia de transmision pero al perecer es muy buena.