The Baofeng UV-21 comes in three flavors, the standard UV-21, the UV-21R, and the UV-21 Pro. The only difference, I have found so far, is that the Pro comes with the new menu system and GPS. The rest of the radio appears identical, and in fact, sitting on my desk turned off, I can’t tell the difference.
The QYT KT-8R is a little bit of a sleeper radio that crept under most people’s radar. A quad-band radio with a large color screen with a 2000mAh battery for under $80. So what’s the catch? Let’s see.
As I have mentioned before, I really like the looks of most of the Wouxun radios, and the Wouxun KG-UVD1P is no exception to that. Not all of their radios are the same, however, regardless of how good-looking they are. Let’s take a look at this model and see how it compares to their other radios, and to the competition.
The Yaesu VX-7R is a quad-band, feature-rich radio released in 2002 that is still quite popular even though it has been discontinued around 2017. There are a lot of factors that make it as popular as it is today, and why it continued to be produced for 15 years.
The Yaesu VX-5 is an excellent small radio from one of the three top manufacturers of handheld ham radio. Being tri-band, it is exceptionally capable and packs an enormous amount of features in a package smaller than most cellphones these days. Let’s see what all it can do.
This Explorer QRZ-1 is an interesting radio as it is based on the TYT TH-UV88. In fact, I can’t find any substantial difference between the two at all, and I am currently using the battery off the TYT on the Explorer. You may also know that the same radio is also sold under the MyEmergencyRadio.com brand as My-EMR1 and I have an article on that radio.
I have always liked the way radios like the Wouxun KG-UV3D look. Something about them just look and feel better to me than a lot of the Baofengs and their clones. But looks aren’t everything.
The Baofeng 5RH Pro is one of a new platform of radios. That is, a set of radios that share a lot of common things like basic key layout, size, battery type, etc. The older platform was the UV-5R and its many variants. This new platform is definitely a step-up in just about every way, with a few caveats.
I thought I would pick up the Quansheng UV-K5 because I really don’t hear much about Quanshen. They have been selling ham gear in the United States for over a decade with models like the TG-UV8D and TG-UV2, however it is not a name you see mentioned that often, which is a shame.
The Baofeng UV-K5 Plus is one of a new series of radios that appear to be based on the same chassis which include the RH5, UV-5RM and BF-F8HP Pro among others. Like the UV-5R that spawned a whole series of radios based on that platform, each model has some unique characteristics.