UV-5R Two Way Radio Dual Band 144-148/420-450Mhz Walkie Talkie 1800mAh Li-ion Battery(Black)

I'm familiar with these, the 10 watt AR-5RM variant, and the Quansheng UV-K5, and what I like about these most of all is the price. Secondly, it has more settings than most folks would ever need, but the Quansheng is a bit more refined in that aspect. I set it up using CHIRP and it's a great addition, and with auto lock activated, great for our kid whenever we're out exploring or in an emergency. I've been gifting these and setting them up beforehand, and while they may not know the intricacies of it, all we need to do is enter 069 (easy to remember) in an emergency and we're all talking on the same frequency. If you want to monitor airband, CB (antenna permitting), and transmit on a wider range of frequencies with an easy interface, get the Quansheng UV-K5. For a cheaper, bare minimum ham that gets everyone communicating, this UV-5R is an overwhelmingly popular choice and the how-to videos out there on this thing are abundant. For an upgraded version with double the wattage (about an extra ⅓ added to distance), the AR-5RM is good. Baofeng/Quansheng like to repackage internals in different shells, so research what's what if looking at other models. Yadda yadda research the rules, yadda yadda don't be a nuisance.

small size means it can be stowed away in a bag easily. not as powerful as some, but it works well and the battery lasts a long time. best upgrade you can do is an antenna. i have several baofengs and i got this because it is very small and easy to use.

These new Baofeng's come "locked" in such a way that you cannot transmit on GMRS frequencies unless you know how to unlock them. A quick search of the internet and you will find an instructional video on how to unlock the ability to transmit. However, in order to legally transmit on certain frequencies, you need a GMRS License. (At least you do, in the USA.) You can get a GMRS License by paying a fee (just search the internet for how to get it) which makes it legal for you to broadcast on GMRS frequencies, for 10 years. (and includes immediate family members) No test is required, for this particular license. You'll need to use your Call Sign to transmit on Repeater Frequencies. Range is amazing for the price point of this product. You can easily reach one mile with crystal clear voice communication. Up to two miles with good line of sight, and possibly further with a longer antenna and good line of sight. You can program these radios with Channels for FRS/GMRS using a free app, called CHIRP (Search the internet, the danplanet website). You will also need to purchase a USB Programming Cable, to do so, which can be found on Amazon. Easy enough to do, using Windows or Mac, but Linux might be a little tricky as Ubuntu and related variants may have an issue related to the 32-bit libraries needed by CHIRP. I have purchased the higher power 8W Baofeng radios but I find that I mostly use this 5W model, as it is smaller in size and performs well enough, in comparison to higher power radios. For vehicle to vehicle communication, I run a smaller aftermarket antenna (from Amazon) which helps me only to pick up signals transmitted within a ~1 mile range. Just be sure to abide be your local laws, before transmitting. You can listen, legally. FRS requires no license but has a 0.5 Watt limitation, to transmit. These radios operate from 1-4 Watts. So, even at the lowest RF Setting, you're going to be over .5 Watts. Hence the reason they are "locked" from transmitting, from the factory. I would highly recommend these radios to anyone who is looking for quality 2-way communication, near or far, in an affordable package.

A nice intro to HAM radio device. Near unbeatable price, and a classic. While the battery power could use an upgrade, this is also easily replaceable with many options on the market. As it's an entry level radio, the range is expectantly short and if you plan to use this for more than intro/exploratory purposes I would recommend either a different radio or at least an antenna replacement. You do NEED a license in order to operate this radio but you do NOT need one to just listen in. Otherwise, buttons, input, and menu screens are relatively self explanatory and easy to use.

My rating reflects the value for the price and not necessarily a flawless product. At time of purchase in Q4 2025, the cost was ~$16.50. The Baofeng UV-5R is a good entry point into amateur radio. You can fairly easily exchange antennas, and listen to regular broadcast FM with or without headphones/earpiece. It’s both over and under featured and takes some time to get used to. I think I’ll likely purchase an advanced model later that can receive Noaa, aviation bands, etc, but I’m happy with this purchase. UV-5R is compatible with CHIRP, and I have used it successfully with a USB UART to Kinwood style cable to program channels. My only complaint is that this can’t legally be used to broadcast on non Amateur Radio frequencies in the USA, but that’s more of an FCC limitation than a technical one. I have since purchased part 90 radios to use in conjunction with a site license at work and my experience with the Baofeng made setting those up correctly much easier. I like that you can listen to broadcast FM while tuned to other channels and it’ll break away from the broadcast FM to let you hear the transmission, then go back to broadcast FM after a few seconds. You can use this in “channel” or “frequency” mode. I have mostly used it in channel mode as my initial use was just listening to channels at work. Frequency mode is what it says, you can punch in a frequency and it’ll tune to it. Sometimes the best way to learn is hands-on, and for that this won’t disappoint.

I got this because a buddy told me I could unlock it to transmit further for GMRS frequency channels and sure enough it worked. Those radios are a little more expensive but this worked perfectly and saved me some money. Plenty of YouTube videos on it. I only use it for off roading and the battery lasted several days, range worked for what we needed it for, solid and durable, easy to understand each other.

The Baofeng UV-5R is a really amazing radio for the price. Right now, I own 5 Baofeng radios, with the oldest purchased in 2016, and none have ever failed. I didn't really need another Baofeng radio, but for $16 + tax, I couldn't resist. I highly recommend Baofeng UV-5R to anyone who is new to amateur radio, or just needs a backup. Programming is easy using free Chirp software. The transmit and receive audio is clear and the transmit range is good with the 5W output.

This little radio is extremely powerful and has a great battery life (multiple days of standby power if you enable power saving mode and don't transmit) and it has a removable antenna so you can attach something like a Nagoya, Yagi, or custom coaxial antenna to it. If you buy the extended battery or even just another standard battery, you'll have more battery life than you know what to do with, unless you are constantly transmitting with VOX or you're constantly listening to FM radio with the volume turned up! The stock antenna is pretty good compared to the other more expensive Baofengs, but upgrading to a nagoya NA-771 removes a ton of the faint background hiss on both rx and tx, as well as increasing the tx range quite a bit. From my bench, I couldn't really pick up any additional FM radio stations when scanning through the entire FM range using the Nagoya vs the stock antenna, but what I did notice was that every single station came through crystal clear after swapping the antenna, whereas before it would pick them all up but some stations definitely had poor reception unless I would walk all around the garage looking for a good signal path. It has quite a few nice features but nothing digital, and doesn't have true dual watch monitoring, but with TDR turned on for me I'm able to monitor two frequencies and pick which one I care about more so if they're both active it will let me listen to the "preferred" frequency. It has dcs and ctcss codes for accessing those repeaters, and supports DTMF codes for dialing into Internet relay repeaters or echolink repeaters. As far as ease of use, you will need the manual to decipher the different options in the settings menu. There are some websites out there that give a more detailed breakdown of the menu options and their descriptions, as well as youtube videos to demonstrate more complicated things like programming or connecting two Baofengs to make a mobile repeater. Both of those capabilities require a different cable, not included. Finally, regarding programming, you DO NOT need to get the programming cable as you can do everything right from the radio. If you want to look up different frequencies of your local repeaters and store them in the memory channels, you can do that pretty quickly and easily right from the radio once you learn the flow. Where the programming cable comes in handy is when you want to add a hinge number of pre-programmed channels to the radio, but IMO there is no need for that. I tried it with all the virginia repeaters and found that only 1 or 2 ever had any traffic, even when I would go driving for hours and leave it on channel scan mode. Where I think the programming cable would come in handy is if you routinely traveled out of state (like from the east coast to the west coast) and you had a different set of frequencies and repeaters and settings for each location that you wanted to be able to swap between easily. When you go to the west coast you can just backup your east coast profile to save any changes you made or any new frequencies you saved, and then restore the west coast profile so you're able to make changes and save any new frequencies you find there. Then when you're ready to come back, just save the west coast profile to the computer and restore the east coast profile.