Anyone know the transmit frequency range of these radios?  If they go where I need them I may be able to use them in the New Zealand commercial band or FM CB band. 

73
Scott
ZL1CHM / N0NOK

Sent from my iPhone

On 7/01/2014, at 11:46 AM, "Mike Duke, K5XU" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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
>