I have several and 100% agree with Dave, perfect analysis of the pro's and cons. My 8 watter gave it up but the YL's has survived. At the price though they just can't be beat, drop it in the toilet or leave it on top of the car, who cares?
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Originally Posted by davet753
I have two Baofengs (a UV5R and a BF-F8HP), and both are set to wide band. The 8 watt version has great audio, the UV5R was very low when I got it, and there is no mic gain adjustment. The hole on the case for the UV5R microphone is very tiny, and you can improve the transmitted audio by making the hole larger.
The Baofeng HT's lack a lot of features, the design of the menu system sucks, and the display is outdated. Despite that, for $35 they are one heck of a good deal. They work well, and accessories are super low priced compared to the competition.
Programming is a royal PIA, but you can download CHIRP for free and make it much less stressful. Just be sure before you program it to use the software to read the factory parameters and save them to a file on your computer.....that way you can go back to the factory settings as the menu option to do a "factory reset" doesn't really reset everything.
I also recommend going on amazon and purchasing some accessories. They have an external mic/speaker that you can get for less than $10, and the Nagoya NA771 whip antenna ($15) will beat the daylights out of the factory rubber duck. If you want to use a base antenna, beware the SMA adapter you need is exactly opposite the standard one used by everybody else.
For the money, you can't beat the Baofengs.
David KM4NYI
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