I’ve had this radio now for about three months. I used it almost every day. I like the radio. Everything from the way it looks to the way it feels. It does not feel like a cheap Chinese radio. Feels pretty solid. I’ve dropped it a couple of times on concrete with almost no damage to the case. Not even noticeable.
BUT, I’ve experienced issues with two of the six radios I ordered. Yes I said six radios. More about that later.
Here is the only problem I’ve experienced. The radio freezes and won’t wake up (I have the backlight set to turn off after 2 minutes). I press the keys on the keyboard, turn the knobs at the top of the radio, press the PTT button, and nothing. Won’t wake up or transmit. I have to turn it off and then on again for it to start working again.
I carry the radio in a leather holster and I thought that may be it fits too tight and the keyboard keys were being pressed and held pressed, causing the radio to act up. I cut out a window so the keyboard is new exposed, but that didn’t work.
I use it with a shoulder speaker/mic, also made by Ailunce. Thinking that may be the shoulder speaker/mic was causing the problem, I took it off and it still does it.
I always put the radio in lock mode, so that I won’t accidentally change the channel. So I tried carrying it unlocked. Nope, it still does it.
I changed the backlight setting to always on, thinking that may be that was the problem. Nope, it still freezes.
Thinking that may be it was something I had changed in the settings, I have done a factory reset in both radios at least a couple of times. Nope, it still freezes.
I figured that it was a bad radio (may be because I had dropped it) and started using a brand new one, never used and never dropped. Sure enough, I’ve experienced the same problem. I still have another four brand new radios to try.
But get this, the radio can work fine for a day or two or longer and then start acting again. I am at a point that I am scratching my head trying ti trouble shoot the problem.
Back in November I contacted Ailunce tech support. The girl asked me to take a video of the problem when it happened again, but it stopped doing it for over a month. Last week it started to act up again. WTH!
I sent the video over to Ailunce through WhatsApp. I can see that they have viewed the video but I haven’t heard back from them. I suspect that it will be a firmware problem.
If you are wondering why I bought six radios, I bought one first and I liked it. It worked as intended. At that time Ailunce had a special of 6 radios for like 320 bucks. I could not help myself and I ordered them. I was looking for radios that we could use out in the desert while doing search and rescue. It felt like a solid radio that performed well for the price and it’s water poof. Just what we need.
I had tried other cheap Chinese radios, like the Baofeng UV-5R (I returned them) and the BTech GMRS-V2 (kept it and like it but the battery dies fast).