SCPA & SBSA Discussion Board

I bought one of these bad boys. and, well... you get what you pay for.

Though the radio gives you a lot of features including: tapping into local repeaters (ham radio license to transmit, but not receive), scan, larger battery packs, external speakers, larger antennas if you want all of it...

What it is really low on is: RANGE

Advertised is 6-7 miles, however I found it to be more sketchy and not very strong or reliable.

I would suggest using it as a back up, but if you want a reliable back up, no... maybe for people sitting at Parma wanting to listen... but not for pilots.

MUST be direct line of site, AND within a couple miles at most....

Anyone have any other experience with it. If you have a HAM license and want to program/use a repeater with another pilot also with a license...?? But, we use our radios as simplex which lets us all get on the same frequency...

I read on some Ham Radio sites that the big problem with the UV-5R is the antenna that comes with it. I think I remember someone saying the stock antenna is little more than a dummy load and putting a proper dual band antenna on the radio improves its performance considerably. I have no direct experience with the UV5R, but that's what I've heard FWIW.

I bought one of these radios, mainly as a spare to loan out. I've never used it with the stock antenna, but only with this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KB ... UTF8&psc=1, and it works quite well.
While I have never done any serious range testing with it, the radio is, I think, amazingly good for the price. I fly with an ICOM IC-V8, and I have another IC-V80, both of which are excellent handheld transceivers. They cost 4x what the Baofeng costs though, and they are single-band 2m radios, while the Baofeng is a dual-band radio covering 2m and 70 cm. We have lots of AZ pilots using Baofeng radios, and in general, we've been advising new pilots to buy them rather than splashing out on the more expensive ICOM or Yaesu models.
By the way, if you're transmitting (even simplex) on the 2m band (or any HAM band), you should be licensed. It's really easy to get licensed (qrz.com supplies practice tests), so please consider doing it.