Baofeng NA-K61 K61 Review

just like the other radios in this style, the Baofeng NAK-61 has a rather thick battery and with the clip attached makes it awkward to hold in the hand. My lower fingers tend to wrap around it in an awkward fashion and the clip digs into my index finger. It also feels like my index finger has to reach around in order to press the PTT button.

Since the battery appears fairly dense it adds some nice weight which allows the radio to sit on the desk without fear of tipping over. Most of the buttons and the volume knob work fairly well, with more than enough spacing between buttons.Like a lot of the new radios the PTT button requires you to press it pretty much dead in the center or it won’t do anything. This is not always a problem however since you have to make a conscious effort to reach around the radio to press the PTT button on this unit it is inconvenient to say the least.

Well the belt clip on the Baofeng NAk-61 gets in the way of holding the radio it does do a fairly good job of staying on your belt. I do wish there was a little bit more tension in the spring and more of a hook on the bottom of the clip to secure it to my belt.

The LCD on this radio is narrower than a lot of the older Baofeng radios, such as the UV-5R. It is however substantially taller and has much higher resolution, making the text sharp and clear. The problem I have is that they did not use the space on this nice screen to its greatest potential. They shoved a lot of information in front of the frequency, forcing the frequency further to the right and of course smaller. The blue backlight is very nice and makes it easy to read in any lighting conditions.

Unlike a lot of the newer radios, the menu on the Baofeng NA-K61 takes up the vast majority of the screen, making everything large and pretty easy to read. The only downside is that the font is too narrow. If they made the font bolder, it would help a considerable amount.

I was surprised to see the test results of this large battery only come out to 1530mAh, but I guess they had to cut corners somewhere to get this radio into the price point it’s in. I am also not a big fan of the release mechanism as it requires you to use your fingernails and the older I get, the weaker my nails get. I can’t imagine someone who had long sculpted nails being able to release the latch without a tool. I guess it’s still better than the Baofeng radios that require a screwdriver to get the battery off.

Programming the Baofeng NA-K61 from the front panel is no different than most other Baofeng radios, other than the menu is a little easier to read. Most of the menu options even have the exact same names as you will find in radios such as the UV-5R.

For software programming, you can use a standard Baofeng programming cable, along with chirp. There is no dedicated driver for chirp, just use the driver for the k6 and it should work. Keep in mind that the same driver works for many radios in this family.

Performance:

The Baofeng NA-k61 is about what you would expect from a budget Chinese radio. Looking at the spectrum, the center is not very well concentrated and is a little sporadic. For the price of the radio it isn’t that bad, I have seen much worse.

It even puts out a pretty decent amount of power, with 4.8 Watts on 2 m and 2 Watts on 70 cm. Unfortunately, a considerable amount of this power is chewed up by a substantial amount of spurious emissions. While certainly not one of the worst bow fang radios I’ve seen, it isn’t one of the best either. It is just slightly below the average for all Baofeng radios.

The antenna that comes with the Baofeng na-k61 is actually remarkably good for a factory radio. This is probably simply a matter of them sourcing antennas for their dual-band radios from a central source, rather than them actually putting any effort into designing this particular antenna.

Images:

Radio Specifics:

Test Images:

• Tri-band TX/RX (2m/1.25m/70cm)
• FM/Air receive
• USB-C Charge
• Frequency copy
• 2600mAh battery
• 999 Channels
• Flashlight
• 10 NOAA channels
• FM Radio
• DTMF
• Large screen
• VOX function

Like most of the new radios coming out, the bow thing na-k61 comes in a variety of kits with different accessories. These kits range from the radio and battery, up to kits with multiple radios multiple batteries and aftermarket antennas. A good portion of the kits even come with drop-in desktop chargers, which I really like. It is nice to have the USB-C so that I can charge anywhere anytime, however a drop in charger is my standard at home. Of course, the price fluctuates quite a bit depending on the kit you choose and what accessories come with it.

Conclusions

So it’s time for that question, would I recommend it? Like all radios, the answer to that is both yes and no. It does not fit my hand very well at all, so if you have large hands, you might want to try one before you buy it. This radio is absolutely an improvement over the standard UV-5R as far as the screen, charging capabilities, and battery life are concerned. Where it comes up short is price versus performance, but only if you look at the Baofeng NA-K61 from just a dual-band perspective.

A UV-5R has almost the same power output with substantially less spurious emissions. It also cost a bit less. Since you can add a USB-C chargeable battery to a UV-5R for very little money, it might make more sense for someone on a very tight budget who only needs standard dual-band functionality.

Where this radio shines is that it adds 1.25m TX/RX, and several other receive bands, for just a few dollars more than a UV-5R, which makes the Baofeng NA-K61 a pretty good deal.

Here are some reviews of the radio!