Ham Radio Baofeng Radio UV-21R Dual Band Ham Radio Handheld Long Range Two Way Radio for Adults 5RM Rechargeable Walkie Talkies K5Plus with NOAA Weather Receive VOX 999 Channels 771 High Gain Antenna

This is a wonderful radio that is a lot of fun to use and works extremely well. Please DO NOT be discouraged from purchasing the radio because of my review. This is my 7th Baofeng radio, and the best Baofeng radio I have ever owned.There are several design problems that I am surprised the company did not catch.First the screen is impossible to see during bright light. Also, when switching to the NAME mode, the names are very small and hard to read. However, when in the frequency mode the numbers are very large and bright and easy to read. The name mode should also have large letters.The belt clip does not have a study hook at the bottom. Do not count on the belt clip to keep the radio secured on your belt.There is no channel lock out option. I frequently monitor fire and police. However, they can be annoying. There is no way to lock them out. They only way to stop them is to delete the channels. This means you have to manually program them back into the radio or by using Chirp software.No lock on scan mode. You can easily lock the radio's keyboard when both channel banks are not scanning. However, if one of the banks is scanning you cannot lock the keyboard.This radio did not come with a programing cable. You will need a cable to program the radio when using the Chirp software. Look around and see if they offer a UV-21R with a programing cable. I have three from the other radios I have purchased over the years.This will NOT be my last Baofeng radio. I already have my eye on one of their 10-Watt radios.

Great Baofeng. Similar to the 5RM/AR-5RM/K5PLUS family of great cheap HTs but for some reason this one generates more wattage on the 1.25m band. YMMV but I am seeing 8W output on 1.25m, and 8-10 watts on 70cm and 2m (which are excellent numbers for a cheap HT). No other HT that I own puts out more than 3-4 watts on 1.25m (220MHz)ADDENDUM:The only real downside I've noticed is that it does not share battery compatibility with the Baofeng AR-5RM, 5RM, K5PLUS, and BF8HP-PRO (which all share the same battery) and I have a big stack of those batteries. Slight bummer, but the battery it comes with works fine and it is USB-C chargable.

I use this radio 24-7 as my local UHF Simplex Repeater. The receiver is better than my other HTs, because it doesn't hear the temperature & Humidity data from my UHF weather station.The audio quality is better than expected, into the 'Mcbazel Surecom SR-112 Cross Band Radio Simplex Repeater Controller' (from Amazon). The clearance around the mic connector is nice and wide, so all my mics and other devices will plug right in. I did use this radio for hiking and it worked fine. But it's been a Repeater I/O since August 2024.

Pretty consistent with the power of 5-6w in the three ham bands and the MURS and GMRS bands.Display needs to be brighter and the font size needs to be bigger like the frequency display is. There's no reason for it to be smaller than the frequency fonts.The center button between the arrows should have been utilized in some way such as an OK button in the menu or maybe a reverse shift of the repeater you are using. Or even as a programmable button would be nice. As it is it's not used for anything.Can't testify about the battery life except for the first night I used it to play FM radio as I slept and that was out of the box and played with it and programming it and it lasted a good 18 hours. I am still cycling the battery in that manner for the first three times to get the best performance I can from the battery.Had to use the UV-17R Pro settings in Chirp to program it.Airband reception would be nice but not really a big deal for me since I have several scanners if I want to do that.The short antenna is junk and I recommend not using it if you want to be able to use your new radio for very long. The AR-771 that came with it seems to be ok even in the 1.25m band but it's not perfect. It's just OK meaning it's SWR in most of the bands were below 3 and mostly around 2 and lower.I like the ability to use the USB-C to charge it but it's not clear if you can use the faster charging that you can use on your phones like the 10W and higher chargers. It just says faster USB-C charging, so I take it as faster than the cradle charger but I don't find any maximum charging rate and don't really want to burn my house or car to the ground for a $25 radio.The audio both transmit and receive is pretty good.The programming on the fly is ok but could be better. Haven't tried the frequency cloning feature but it did pick up my base radio from inside the house correctly.I like the weather radio option but I would like to have seen an alert feature especially since I live in Tornado Alley.If I find anything that I need to update on I will edit this review.

I bought this and an Icom IC-V86 the same month. I got the Baofeng because it got 70 Centimeters, and the Icom was only 2 meters. I wish I had purchased the Baofeng first, and I could have saved $129 and gotten a dual-band radio. Plus, everything you go to buy, like a cable for Chirp or a Handheld Microphone, is 1/4 of what Icom charges.I have been a Ham Radio operator for over 30 years, and I have had a lot of different radios. I would recommend this radio; it has been great so far, and for the 2 months I have had it I have used it a lot.

This radio works very good, the battery life is amazing,the quality is above all, easy to learn and work with,

Muy buenos