{"id":15337,"date":"2015-10-29T09:03:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T13:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=15337"},"modified":"2015-10-30T06:53:13","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T10:53:13","slug":"the-baofeng-uv-5r-is-tougher-than-the-25-pricetag-implies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/the-baofeng-uv-5r-is-tougher-than-the-25-pricetag-implies\/","title":{"rendered":"The BaoFeng UV-5R is tougher than the $25 price tag implies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UV-5R\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ll admit it: I’m a bit of a handheld radio snob.<\/p>\n

I don’t own many HT transceivers, but the ones I do own are manufactured by the “big three”–namely, Yaesu<\/a>, Kenwood<\/a> and Icom<\/a>. For ages, these three companies dominated the handheld radio market.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, several Chinese radio manufactures (Baofeng<\/a>,\u00a0Wouxun<\/a>, TDXone<\/a> and TYT<\/a> to name a few) started flooding the market with inexpensive handheld transceivers–radios that literally cost a fraction<\/em> of those produced by the “big three.” Where a Yaesu dual band handheld might cost between $150-250 US, a Baefeng model might cost $25-50 US.<\/p>\n

As one might imagine, these inexpensive transceivers gained quite a following in the ham radio community and with\u00a0preparedness\/communications enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

I’ve read that many of these ultra-cheap transceivers are difficult to program and I’m sure that’s one of the factors that has kept me from purchasing\u00a0one.<\/p>\n

I also assumed that a $25 radio must be very poorly constructed.\u00a0Seems I’m incorrect at least on this point.<\/p>\n

Many thanks to Dave (K4SV) for sharing the following video<\/a> from Chris (K5CLC), who put the popular Baofeng UV-5R<\/a> through an “extreme” field test:<\/p>\n