BAOFENG Dual Band Two Way Radio

BAOFENG Dual Band Two Way Radio

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These things are awesome! There’s a bit of a learning curve regarding programming the BAOFENG GT-3WP (and BAOFENG radios in general), but that’s only because they are very capable radios! They’re not top of the line, but they certainly function like a radio that should have a $100+ price tag! Obviously some compromises were made in the design, but they look premium, feel solid in the hand, and function very well.

As for them feeling solid, you could literally feel the high impact plastic that’s used. It does not feel cheap! I would think it would take much more than a couple of falls to damage one of these radios! Additionally, being IP67 rated, you won’t have any worries when it comes to day-to-day water damage!

Let’s get back to the programming… DON’T do it by hand! Get a cable for the initial setup and do it on your PC. Just be careful as the web is bursting at the seams with programming cables that utilize counterfeit chips! The counterfeit chips will generally work, but it’s more difficult to find a driver, not to mention the cable quality being extremely sub-par when they contain a knockoff. For simple tweaks, however, learn your radio and do those manually! Though there are A LOT of features, it’s worth it to comprehensively learn them to take full advantage of your radio!

Now, the programming port is also a general accessory port (Motorola compatible, NOT Kenwood) that accepts many types of accessories to include earpieces and external speaker/mics! I even found a one rated IP67 to match the radio. I actually didn’t even realize this until it arrived as there were a handful of color options available, but I selected black to match the radio. It just so happened that the black one is the sealed unit with the IP67 rating! :+1:

These are also VERY easy to factory unlock, but do NOT unlock your radio unless you know exactly what you’re doing. There’s a very minute chance that you could brick your radio, but it should be noted — that more far more importantly — the factory unlock CANNOT be reversed!

A cool trick that I discovered is that these radios work pretty damn good as makeshift scanners! Yes, as scanner radios! :blush: Being that you have SCAN (*) and TDR (7) buttons, you could either flip through channels, albeit slowly compared to a dedicated scanner, or monitor your two favorite channels with the Dual Watch (A/B) function. I personally prefer the latter as I keep county Fire dispatch on one channel along with county EMS dispatch on the other.

Note that it is perfectly legal to LISTEN to channels unless expressly forbidden by law to do so.

(Here in New Jersey we’re moving to an all digital infrastructure for our police departments and a law was enacted making it illegal to listen to the New Jersey State Police (NJSP), however these radios are analog, NOT digital, and you couldn’t listen to such frequencies if you tried.)

Just be certain to use the Duplex function on your radio to disable transmission capabilities before using it as a scanner! This will ensure that you won’t accidentally key-up on an official channel!

There are a ton of other features, but I will share one more! Let’s say you want to use your unlocked radio on a certain subset of frequencies that have power restrictions. You could easily limit the transmission power by channel! As your options are 1W, 3W, and 5W, you may be limited to selecting the power limit that’s closest without going over that which is allowed by law.

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In summary, these are fantastic radios, and also a lot of fun! Being of such great value, I must say do NOT hesitate to buy one (or several) as they do come back periodically! This is frankly beyond a good value and you really can’t go wrong whether you’re just starting out or have years of radio experience behind you!

Final Rating: 4.5 Stars! :star::star::star::star::star:

Reason: The only thing these radios are lacking, IMHO, is Superheterodyne reception circuitry. Superhet would have been nice to have, but it’s actually really understandable at the given price range. I’ve seen others give much harder critiques, but after many hours of hands-on use, I think the value outweighs any relatively minor issues that are nitpicking at best!

Be well, and thanks for reading! :v:

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