Here it is minus the equal signs and numbers.
K5XU
Im not Bob and i dont play him on TV, but Ive somehow
managed
to become Mr. Chinese Handheld Radio Guy. Heres what I know
about
these.
If you want best price, its far and away the Baofeng UV5R,
which can be had from Amazon for $29. Yep, really.
If the information Ed posted about the Wouxuns is correct,
it might be
well to stay away from it. According to Ed, they all have
this small
problem where they may possibly lose their memories. Ive had
mine for
something close to four years and this hasnt happened to me.
Yet. But
maybe you dont want to take the chance.
I would stay away from either of the TYT radios. I have a
TH-UVF9, and
it really isnt as usable as the others are, mainly because
important
things like CTCSS, deviation (wide or narrow), and step
size, are not
directly settable from the keypad, meaning you have to set
them using
up/down arrow keys, and theres no way to know where you are
in the
setting.
Now, for usability, thats a hard question to answer. Here
are some
observations that may help though.
The Wouxun radios time out very quickly when youre in the
menu. So
youd better work quickly, or youll have to do your
programming
over. And by quickly, I mean three seconds. Both the
Baofeng and
the Puxing PX-UV973 take a lot longer to time out. The
Baofeng is a good
10 seconds before the menu times out, and the puxing is
similar.
However, you dont get any audible warning from the Puxing
that the
menu has timed out, where you do on the Baofeng.
All three, Wouxun, Puxing, and Baofeng, allow setting of
CTCSS or DCS
tones from the keypad. However, the Baofeng and Puxing allow
you to
directly specify the tone, such as 1862 for a 186.2 tone,
where the
Wouxun requires that you select from a number list, where,
for instance,
36 is 186.2. Setting tones on the Puxing is also a little
more
difficult, but not by much. I need to hurry up and write the
Puxing
eyes-free thingy.
The Puxing is the only radio of the three that offers a true
dual
receive. However, its a little difficult knowing which band
is
active, as there isnt any audible indication of this. You
can work
around this by setting the volume of the secondary band
differently from
the primary band; also, if you turn off the dual receive,
youll
always return to the main band, so you can always get back
to a known
state.
All three radios have similar frequency coverage.
The Wouxun and Baofeng keypads are kind of sideways, with
ABCD across
the top, and 1,2,3,* 4,5,6,0, 7,8,9,# in rows of four.
The Puxing has
ABCD across the top, and a standard layout 12 key touch tone
pad below.
The Wouxun has a nice locator dot on the 5 key, but the
others do not.
All of them have drop-in chargers. The Baoffeng has the best
battery
selection, coming with an 1800 MA/H battery and having a
3800 MA/H
available for less than $20. The Puxing has the smallest
battery at 1200
MA/H. 1800 MA/H is available from China on eBay if you look.
(It might
be 1600 MA/H, but whats 200 MA/H between friends?) All of
them have
good long battery life, but especially the Baofeng if you
put on the big
battery, which makes it feel a bit more like HTs of old.
Oh, one other thing. Programming repeater channels is a bit
more
convoluted with the Baofeng, requiring that you program in
receive and
transmit frequencies separately. This effectively means you
program each
channel twice. Wouxun and Puxing remember repeater offsets
just fine.
All of the computer software is pretty horrible, except
perhaps the RT
Systems software, which costs as much as or more than the
radio itself.
I dont have the RT Systems software for any of these myself,
sorry.
Pricing. As mentioned before, the Baofeng can be had for as
little as
$29 from Amazon. The Puxing is between $75 and $80. The
Wouxun is around
$100, but Ed no longer sells it. Lots of others do, though.
I dont have much information thats of any use about the new
Anytone AT-3318UV, sorry. Hope to find out more.
Vy 73, de KB5ELV
Mike Duke, K5XU
American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs
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