Last week I jumped into the Chinese HT fray and ebay'd up me a BFeng UV-5R Plus.
Could repeat all the earlier comments already on here. Generally impressed with performance and features. Disgusted with the pathetic excuse for a manual. Was able to glean basic operation for the manual but laughed at how it made no mention whatsoever of how to access certain features like the Flashlight and FM Broadcast Radio features. And forget even trying to program up a pile of memory channels manually ..... a real fool's errand.
Unpleasantly surprised at the FEMALE SMA antenna. All my other on-hand adapters and antennas were MALE SMA from past Icom and Cobra handhelds .... so back to ebay to buy more.
Local friend also provided the tip of the CHIRP programming freeware. Is spreadsheet style and covers dozens of radios across many different manufacturers. He and all his guys use this exclusively and don't even bother with any of the manufacturer's direct software. Says easy & excellent. Linky here:
Home - CHIRP
Also, another fellow has rewritten the "manuals" (Ha!) to numerous Chinese HT's which covers to most asked questions and omissions and is another excellent resource. Linky:
http://wouxun.us/Software/Baofeng/Guide_to_UV5R_by_Lidberg_&_Unroe.pdf
Could repeat all the earlier comments already on here. Generally impressed with performance and features. Disgusted with the pathetic excuse for a manual. Was able to glean basic operation for the manual but laughed at how it made no mention whatsoever of how to access certain features like the Flashlight and FM Broadcast Radio features. And forget even trying to program up a pile of memory channels manually ..... a real fool's errand.
Unpleasantly surprised at the FEMALE SMA antenna. All my other on-hand adapters and antennas were MALE SMA from past Icom and Cobra handhelds .... so back to ebay to buy more.
Local friend also provided the tip of the CHIRP programming freeware. Is spreadsheet style and covers dozens of radios across many different manufacturers. He and all his guys use this exclusively and don't even bother with any of the manufacturer's direct software. Says easy & excellent. Linky here:
Home - CHIRP
Also, another fellow has rewritten the "manuals" (Ha!) to numerous Chinese HT's which covers to most asked questions and omissions and is another excellent resource. Linky:
http://wouxun.us/Software/Baofeng/Guide_to_UV5R_by_Lidberg_&_Unroe.pdf
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