I have reviewed some Tidradio products before, so I got a Tidradio TD-H8 to see how their highest end (without going DMR) performed. They have some innovative products like their BL-1 wireless programmer that replaces the standard programming cable, so I was excited to see what the H8 could do.
The JJCC JC-8629 is another in a group of recent radios that all claim a large number of bands (in this case, 7), high-power output, a large battery, a full color screen and a bevy of other features, in this case Bluetooth and GPS. All this in a radio slightly bigger than a UV-5R and at a price between $60 and $90. Most fail to live up to the hype, and some fail spectacularly, like my recent review of the Abbree AR-518. Read it if you want a laugh.
Rarely do I get a chance to review a radio that claims to do as much as the Abbree AR-518. According to the ads it is a 6-band, 256 channel, LCD color (is that supposed to be color LCD?), police scanner and aviation radio with a 8800mAh battery. All for under $60.
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.