Good review, I've had this radio for three years and its a solid performer for the price. I recommend buying the programming cable and using Chirp to set it up, but you can program it without. If you want to work nearby repeaters this radio will easily do that.
I started with this radio for budget reasons. Its actually a great little radio. The fact that it's not a 50w radio is about the only thing i don't like.
Thanks for posting this video. I recently got my General license, BUT, I do not have a radio and the Anytone seemed interesting and your review makes me think it would be a good starter radio for me. My only question is unrelated to the radio and more about your thoughts on any good antennae ideas while in an HOA. I have seen several videos that specifically offer suggestions (using house gutters, wires unobtrusively along a fenceline, etc.) but was interested in any thoughts you might have about antennas in that situation. Thanks for any insights.
HI Bob.... Obviously for this Anytone radio those options wouldn't work at all since it's VHF/UHF. I assume your question is about HF since you have a general license... I've never personally tried gutters but I think it has potential to work. Here's the problem that I see. Say if you have 2 gutters; one in front and rear of the house. You'll have to run a coax to gutter "A" and connect the center conductor. Then split the coax so that your shielding can go to gutter "B" on the other side of the house. You'll have 40 or so feet of bare conductor going to the other side of the house. I have never tried that so I can't say if it'll work or not. IF it did you'll certainly need a good tuner. Probably a roller inductor... If you had trees that would be ideal, but not sure how much property you have. Try doing a search for "stealth ham antenna" and you'll probably get quite a few results that you can probably use...
I purchased the Retevis RT-95 which is the same as this one. I had to send it back because the signals from a data farm less than a mile and line of sight were causing Intermod products on every GMRS channel. It is an especially annoying sound. It was intermittent, pegged the S-meter and heard a voice in under the data at times and this is how I knew was intermod and not images (which would be constant). I was surprised to find that this unit still received the offending data frequencies with the antenna disconnected (as well as some repeaters). I could stop the data signals by an aluminum foil sheet about 14 inches square held on the data farm side of the radio, but not sure if this lack of proper shielding was causing my problem but regardless I couldn't live with it. If I lived AWAY from this data farm; I would definitely NOT be sending it back because I was getting 27 watt power out readings and exceptional audio reports. The Beep never goes low enough and neither does the volume have enough low level graduations. BTW no such IM products appeared on my old VX-2 or Baofeng K5. So 15 years wasn't enough time to obtain good selectivity and shielding? Another something a little annoying was the "pop" in the speaker every time the squelch was activated. How about a ramp on those keying pulses like we've done for 50 fuchin' years....how about a limiter that would prevent over-deviation like we had at FM transmitters for 50 f. ....well, you know.
The only answer I can give you is it's a very cheap radio... I just checked Amazon and it's selling for $120... I do get intermod here a lot from a repeater that is transmitting on a local simplex frequency... On a fairly expensive Yaesu radio too! So it does happen even with better radios... 😊
Im just thinking about getting into HAM, so I have very little knowledge. What I want is to have something in the truck for traveling and be able to communicate along the way. Id like more than just a CB. Is this radio something that would fit the bill?
Yes it would be perfect for that! There are a lot of repeaters in various areas that you can access the frequencies either with a repeater directory app on your phone or a physical paper back book that you can get on Amazon... There is also a national simplex frequency that you can sometimes catch someone on...146.520... You only need the 1st tier license with this radio, the technician license.
