Radioddity MU-5 MURS Radio Review

Since Radioddity started with one of their existing ham radios, it made it easy for them to create a very usable and feature rich MURS radio. Like many of their radios, the Radioddity MU-5 feels well-built, and fits in the hand fairly well. It is a little bit short for my large hands, but that is not uncommon for handheld ham radios. It is definitely larger than something like a Baofeng UV5R.

The small tabs on the bottom of the radio and battery are not exactly the same height which means the radio wobbles a little bit sitting on the desk. It is not overly easy to make it fall, but it is easier than some other radios. Since I usually use a desk stand for my radios, that really isn’t much of a problem. I do wonder how that would change if I replaced the battery.

The buttons on the front of the Radioddity MU5 are well spaced and work well, although the blue text is unusually difficult for me to read. That is probably due to the fact that the buttons are a medium gray instead of dark gray or black, so the contrast is not as great. The PTT button on the side works fairly well, although like many radios today you must make an effort to press right in the center, as pressing the top and bottom of the button does not actuate the switch. Above and below the PTT button or two function buttons, both of which work well, however they are a little too difficult to depress.

The knob on top of the Radioddity MU-5 works as expected and is nice and smooth. My only complaint is that there is a lot of play around the switch portion of the action.

When looking at the screen, for some reason, it is difficult to read inside without the backlight on. There just appears to be too little contrast, probably due to the fact that the screen is set back quite a bit from the clear plastic shield. With the backlight on, contrast is significantly improved, and it is easy to read. I should also mention that the backlight is very even across the entire screen.

One of the main advantages of the Radioddity MU5 over some other budget MURS radios Is that in addition to your standard MURS channels, you have NOAA frequencies for listening to weather, an FM radio, and the ability to receive both VHF and UHF frequencies. This makes the radio ideal for use in situations where weather may be an urgent Factor. You could, for example, listen to NOAA radio and/or Skywarn frequencies in the event of a weather emergency.

The Radioddity MU-5 can be charged via a standard drop-in charger, or via USB-C on the bottom of the battery. The ability to charge two different ways is very advantageous, as the desktop charger is a better solution for businesses or even home users who use it on a regular basis. The USB-C charging feature is more advantageous for hikers, campers, traveling with multiple vehicles, or using on vacation.

Performance:

The antenna on the Radioddity MU-5 is actually a remarkably good antenna for a factory antenna in the frequency ranges it’s intended for. It provides very good return loss and SWR on both VHF and UHF. Yes, there are better alternatives when you start talking about after market antennas, but right out of the box this antenna performs quite well.

The spectrum analysis shows a reasonably tight transmission, with a little bit of pulsing, which is not terribly uncommon for a radio in this price range. I am a little surprised that the signal is not better, considering the radio only puts out about one watt of power. In real world use, this is probably not going to affect anything.

When I measured the spurious emissions, what jumped out at me was not necessarily how much spurious emissions there were, but at the hot mess around the transmission frequency. Radios like the Retevis RB17V put out a much cleaner, stronger signal with less overall spurious emissions. I guess this is the price you pay for adding features.

Ignoring the test results of the Radioddity MU-5 for a moment, the real world performance is pretty good. No, it’s not as good as the Retevis RB17V, but it’s not that much worse either.

Images:

Radio Specifics:

Test Images:

• UHF/VHF receive
• NOAA weather channels
• FM radio
• Scan options including CTCSS/DCS
• SOS alarm
• Flashlight
• Adjustable squelch
• VOX
• TOT
• 1800mAh battery

If you want to program VHF and UHF frequencies into the Radioddity MU-5, you can use chirp. While there is no preset for the mu-5 I used the radio gm-30, and it seemed to work fine. Of course, use at your own risk. You can also switch from channel mode to frequency mode by holding down the menu key, and then directly use the keypad to enter a frequency.

Conclusions

So would I recommend the Radioddity MU-5? If I needed a MURS radio that also had FM radio, weather radio, and receive on both VHF and UHF, then this would be an excellent choice for the money. It performs well and has no major drawbacks.

If I was looking for just a MURS radio without any additional features, I would probably look at the Retevis RB17V which feels better, has more power, is less expensive, is better built, and has a better sounding speaker. So it really depends on what you need in a mirrors radio.

Here are some reviews of the radio!