Quansheng UV-K5(99) Ham Radio Handheld, Full Band Receiver, Air Band, NOAA Weather, USB-C, Tactical Two Way Radio with One Key Frequency Copy(Grey)

What a great HT! Unlike the Baofeng models, this one is easy to program, right on the radio. No need to use CHIRP but that option is available, too. I measured 5 W output on both 2 m and 70 cm plus the receiver sensitivity is excellent as well. Battery life is remarkable, too.

Buyers either like or dislike this little radio. It internal design is very different from most other HTs. I think I received a return. I've done lots of testing on it. Big surprise, it transmits everywhere. Pressing F+5 brought up the spectrum display which looked exactly like a video about the Egzumer firmware. Going through the menu items, there was no setting to leave the backlight on all the time, 5 seconds was longest time. It insisted on a 25 kHz step. I think it was an older version of Egzumer that someone installed, then returned it to Amazon. With Egzumer, this little radio does plenty to keep me busy. AM (air band) fixed, backlight always on, step set to 5 kHz, etc. The charging stand is really nice, a perfect fit. Battery (1600 mAh) lasts a long time, better then expected. Do charge it until full, then leave it on until it shuts off, then repeat, manual says to do that. Why do this? The charging chip records these 2 cycles to give greater capacity. If you have a DMM, you can measure the battery voltage & enter it using the menu, this gives greater accuracy of the percent. Menu 58. Actually, you should do a couple of charge/discharge cycles on any new product with a Li battery. Look up UVK5 flash with a browser. I did it with no problems at all. It now has the latest version 0.22 in it's little CPU memory, 98% used for Egzumer firmware. You can assign the 2 side buttons to do many things. If you want to work 220 band, this isn't the radio for you. It puts out 4.5W on 2 meter, 4.3W on 440, and a whopping 0.35W on 220. I tried it on 6 meters, 4.2W, 10 meters, got 4.0W. Next I checked for harmonics. 2M, (144) is good. 440 is very good. 6M and 10M are horrible! Only transmit on 144 and 440. The hardware supports listening on any frequency, 20 MHz to 1300 MHz, AM, FM & SSB, but transmit is FM only, limited by the main chip. My meter is only good to about 500 MHz, so I can't get a power reading higher than that. I did check the higher frequencies using SDR Console with SDR Play RSP2 & it does transmit up to 1300 MHz, covers the 33 (902 to 928) CM band and the 23 CM band. However, the power output is 50 uW @920 MHZ, 2.5 nanoW @1276 MHZ. Won't go far. Next, programming my repeaters and other frequencies assigned to channels using CHIRP. Just installed the latest version, that includes the driver for it. Along with 2M, 1.25M & 70 CM frequencies, I put 927.950 and 1287.9 MHz in 2 chirp channels, uploaded to the radio, no problems. Tested using SDR Console with SDR Play RSP2. Good, on frequency carrier but low modulation. Receive is very good on 144 and 440. It is obvious to me that this is a VHF/UHF radio. My tests revealed it's poor performance on the 11 M band. Why not just buy yourself a regular ol' CB? I'm impressed by the FM BCB tuner. Beats my other regular AM/FM radio. It uses a dedicated chip. Now, on to the antenna. We all know HT stock antennas aren't all that great. This one is better than the antennas from a Talkpod & Btech UV-5X3. I compared them using a good field strength meter. The Quansheng antenna was better, and like the radio, it is very sturdy little thing. Hope this info helps with decision, buy, or not. For me, it is a keeper.

As mentioned in other reviews, this radio does not have the VOICE capability, so you won't hear any instructions or confirmation of keys pressed spoken. This radio also comes with the manual for the UV-K5, NOT the UV-K5(99). The manual states it receives 50Mhz-600Mhz, but the radio does actually receive 20Mhz-1000Mhz as stated on the webpage. THE GOOD: - Radio receives clearly, including the 118-136Mhz Aircraft band! I was very impressed since the Aircraft band is AM versus FM and a lot of radios don't receive AM at all, or if they do, they don't receive very well. This Quansheng radio does! - Battery life is excellent, although I haven't been transmitting with the radio. Although I'm a HAM RADIO operator, I'm using it as a scanner right now so I programmed all the channels into the radio. - The radio is dirt cheap for the capability it has. - The radio can also be modified by replacing its firmware with a custom version. Please note that this can brick (break) the radio if not done correctly. I plan on using the firmware it came with and just updating the Quansheng programming software when they put a UVK5(99) version on their website. The BAD: - The radio is NOT easily programmed. I own several Baofeng radios and they were fairly simply to program manually. - The radio is so new that CHIRP (programming software) has not yet been updated for this version radio. I was able to download an older version of Quansheng's programming software and it did allow me to program frequencies into the radio. CHIRP is easier to use so hopefully CHIRP will be updated to work with the firmware in this new radio. BOTTOMLINE: For the price, the radio is very good. It's not the quality of a Kenwood radio, but it's 1/10th the price and works well. You'll need some patience learning how to operate the radio but once the software programming for the UVK5(99) is available, you'll be very happy with it. For now, you can download the UVK5 version from the Quansheng website. You will need a USB serial programming cable to program the channels into your radio unless you perform this task manually (which isn't easy).

Radio was just as advertised and at an excellent price.

Good for what it does. Can't beat it for basic operation and the price. Can't scan the range of a lower and upper frequency, you'll have to load one of the custom firmwares for that and for other cool things. Learning curve at first for the functions but not too hard after spending a little time with it. Sensitivity & selectivity on RX is ok. Overall don't bypass it because of it's cheap price , it's very capable. Pair a good antennae with it and it'll be a good performer.

These radio do get alot of bad reviews in the ham community cause they aren't high priced. But has you can tell from my video I'm picking up the flight tower 35 miles away with a simple antenna and I was inside my vehicle. It's easy to program with chirp program. Great for air shows where you can hear everyone flying talking. I've used it at monster truck show and could easily hear all the behind the scenes talk. My kids loved it that they could hear the drivers talking. The wide range of frequencies reception. Battery life is great. I run it all day. It is a usb c charging so easy to connect to battery pack. Performance wise it does great.

For what you are paying, these are great radios. There is value for the money here. There is plenty of custom firmware available for them too. They are horrible at frequencies that are not meant for use with this. For example 27 MHz is only going to output in the milliwatts. If you stick to FRS/GMRS/MURS you will be fine 3-4 watts. CHIRP programming software will work with these. Note the programming cable does not come with this radio. You must purchase one. The Baofeng cables work. People often have problems with it for these reasons: 1) The programming cable must be plugged into the radio AFTER it is turned on. 2) The programming cable must be seated completely. Beware that you can set these up for illegal purposes. Be careful. However, it is a good option for a prepper.

Radio menu does not match User Manual. When attempting to get technical assistance, there has not been a timely response. I've read and understood the manual well. An example is #49, in the manual is to setup Noaa channel. #49 on my radio is a Reset All choice.