gman1971

Yes sir, stainless won't easily corrode which seems to be the enemy, and like you said, it usually cleans up easily. All stainless radials are mounted using STUF dielectric grease, after several months I took them out for inspection and they looked 100% pristine. So, worth mentioning as well. G.

Ah, I see. Well, I have found that I like their antennae but I am not opposed to trying other quality brand gear. For sure. So far these Diamond haven't let me down yet, the X50C2 and the F23H I have are holding rather well in Wisconsin weather conditions. Since Diamond offerings for vehicle mounted applications aren't that great for what I want I'll probably end up getting a Larsen or a Motorola mobile antenna for a van mounted NMO antenna solution. The point is that most of the cheapie stuff always gets you in the end; and yes, I was on that boat, I was the guy who read the comments like the one I made and said "nah, it can't possibly be that bad, he is just an overreacting fool!" Until I had to throw away multiple antennae b/c they developed 8.0:1 SWR... rusted, solder joints were cold and cracked with the extreme weather... etc. Oh, and once you learn about nickel/chrome plating, intermod and poor RF performance there is no going back to the cheapie stuff, ever. Heck, even the US Navy wrote a paper recommending that all nickel plated connectors had to go... and guess what most of those cheapie antennae are made out of... nickel plated/chrome plated steel surfaces.... which might be fine for the first two weeks, but then, when you look at that "return loss" dB curve on the antenna analyzer rather than looking like a nice deep valley it looks more like Ruffles potato chip.... a wavy mess. Again, its Other People's Money, so I won't lose any sleep if you decide to go TRAM, Browning, or Ganzou CrapMaster... just be aware that materials matter a LOT, and a lot more than you'd think. As for corrosion and weatherproofing connectors I've found that STUF dielectric grease works wonders for those non-sealed UHF connectors. Next antennae I get when these Diamond bite the dust will have N connectors, but again you live and learn. Thanks for the clarification Marc. G.

Yep, you'll find no argument from me on this matter. Been there, done that. I've also learned the hard way that using a "commercial grade" GMRS repeater, which might have thousands of dollars invested on it, to gauge performance of ANY radio is just setting yourself for failure. Why? B/c lets face it, the repeater is what does all the work in that situation, not your radio, b/c if that was the case, you wouldn't need a repeater, now would you? So, if you have a radio that works with a repeater far away you can only assume one, or two things, which are: either the repeater is placed at a very good location, or that such repeater has some pretty amazing antenna/feedline/filters/radio gear, or both. You could probably hit repeaters 30+ miles away with one of those 3-transistor radio experiments from those toy electronic kits from the 80s, now, does it mean that such 3-transistor contraption is any good? certainly not. Same applies here, most of those cheap radios have direct conversion receivers with utter garbage front ends, that let through RF noise at the same rate the hole that sank the Titanic let the water through.... Again, I am not saying you shouldn't ever buy those radios, just to BE AWARE of their limitations. I have a dozen of those 9 dollar Baofeng BF-888S spread throughout my large house, pretty much a radio on every room set as intercom, all set on low too. Those work a-charm for that intercom duty, so, my family instead of screaming just pick the radio and talk as most of them use VOX, so its super convenient... but then again, when I need range and reliability I don't carry around an 888S, I carry a portable EVX-539 G7 on my belt and an EVX-5400 G7 mobile on the car... I know Corey loves Motorola, and I am hoping one day I can become a Moto fanboy too... but the wallet is just not there yet... Also, most Motorola gear is made in Malaysia these days IIRC, so I don't think is about where its made, its about how is designed, really. Brands like Motorola do their homework and put out radios that work, and usually work very well; also, they didn't get there b/c one day they woke up and Moto was making great radios, they worked their butts off to get there, and if you care to read about Motorola history you'll see why they are there, all the achievements they've accomplished throughout history. Cheers. G.

I am sorry, I don't understand what you mean. G.

Then those radios should fit the bill rather nicely. I still think, based on the specsheet at least, that the EVX-53x series might have the better receiver and are more futureproof. The EVX-534 might be a good trade off, if you don't need a DTMF keypad... but the 539 is a fine radio too, the G7 model for 450-512 is the one I would chose if you want to use it for GMRS only. G.

It hasn't been too long since I started on GMRS and I started with Baofengs, fortunately it wasn't a very expensive mistake. Once you try to do anything in the real world where you need the radios to reliably work and receive almost all the time, b/c those cheap radios have very poor RF performance you'll hear static where you should hear a loud signal. These cheapies desense (receiver sensitivity goes to ZERO) at the first sign of RF noise... from anything... even other portables around it will make it deaf. You're better off buying used (or new) commercial gear that won't desense all the way when another Baofeng powers up 1 mile away from yours. Have at it, this guy made this nice video explaining why most of those cheap things range is usually pretty bad. And remember, just because you can hit a repeater doesn't mean your radio is any good, it most certainly means that the repeater is using a very good setup to do the heavy lifting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUQsZrd3IGo G.

If you're buying this radio for GMRS b/c of the fancy bells and whistles, just don't. My experience (as a former Baofeng addict) is to look elsewhere. While the radio might have a very palatable price tag, with a fancy color screen, twenty bands, customizable button sounds, roger beeps, voice echo, recording of 1000 hours, whatever, etc, the RF performance will be, like most of the cheap Chinese junk, inadequate, (for the lack of a more blunt word) ... That's their tactic, they can't compete with the US/European/Japanese made radios in the RF performance game (which is the thing that matters the most on a radio) so what do they do? They lower the price and add a ton of fancy (and mostly useless in the end) gadgets so the inexperienced customer bites. You're better off buying used commercial mobiles/portables that are undisputedly legal to use in the UHF GMRS band, or whatever band you are going to use them, (b/c some of those cheap Chinese radios is not 100% clear if they are really type accepted or not, etc). Personally I really like Vertex Standard radios, they come down in price quite a bit, the VX-5500 and VX-6000 are pretty decent radios, with hot receivers... etc. Vertex radios have free programming software, all you need is the cable, which might add to the cost, but other than that the radio RF will be leaps and bounds superior to anything cheap made in China. G.

I have a lot of Vertex gear, some 2nd hand, some new, but I really like it overall, and before they were fully absorbed by Motorola last year, they were basically Motorola quality without all the red tape associated with the Moto stuff. Software is free, just the FIF-12 cable was expensive for my EVX stuff... other than that they are pretty straightforward radios to use. If you don't need to have a DMR radio, then the VX-5500 and VX-6000 mobiles have one of the hottest receivers I've seen. With that said, one of the biggest let downs with the models you've posted is (as explained on another thread) that the bells and whistles factor on those radios is rather low. You get an alphanumeric LCD segment screen, so if you want to use them for DMR stuff like the DMR-Marc etc, you might find the screen a bit lacking lacking compared to, say, the XPR7550e series of portables. G.

Counterfeit stuff is on the rise, and harder to spot these days; and the performance is usually much lower too, as recorded by my own measurements. Most of the knockoff antennae are made with inferior materials too, and after some time they will develop high SWR, and be useless. So, my recommendation is to buy a brand antenna, I have nothing but Diamond antennas installed, and I really like them. I've tried TRAM/Browning, etc, all these went into the recycle bin after 1 or 2 years as they developed super high SWR... so, unless you like replacing the antenna every year or so, stick with brands like Diamond, Comet, Laird... and try to get it from an authorized dealer if possible, otherwise chances are you'll get a counterfeit that won't stand the test of time, more so in bad weather conditions.

I am late to this one, but as someone who started with a couple of Baofengs I have to admit that you really get what you pay for. It is very hard to understand for the first time buyer why these radios are a waste of money, and only after you try to start using those for anything that requires reliability and range the expectations go south, quick. Most of those inexpensive radios have two major problems/deficiencies that most beginners don't understand, and that is even before getting into the legality aspects of those, which have been shuffled already. So, those cheap overseas radios use direct conversion receivers with very poor (if any) filtering on the front end, because adding those costs a lot of $$$. And those two flaws alone means you should look elsewhere, regardless of anything else, no matter what bells and whistles, etc. Which BTW, that is a very common, and smart, strategy used by the cheap overseas manufacturers, they give you a garbage radio sugar coated real good with all kinds of fancy color screens, 150000 DMR contacts, etc... but in the end the radio lacks where it matters the most, in the RF performance. So, what does this receiver mumbo-jumbo mean? Very simple: -Poor receiver selectivity. -Even worse receiver sensitivity. Good lord, what is all that? Well, selectivity is usually the reason why the range on your brand new 20 dollar Baofeng is measured in feet, rather than in miles... and why, you might ask, why? Well, b/c when the radio has little selectivity the receiver hears everything around it, as in, it will hear all the stations that are pumping hundreds of watts at 10 Mhz, 20, 30, or even 300 Mhz apart from the frequency you're tuned in. So, what happens when you are standing front row at a concert and your friend tries to talk to you? You try closing your ears to reduce all that noise blasting in an attempt to hear your friend.... well, the same things happens to these cheap radios, the receivers desense so they are not overloaded, as in, receiver sensitivity goes south, and while the receiver might've had an amazing sensitivity figure advertised (which makes the problem even worse) that means diddly squat when the RF environment gets crowded, even operating near other portables, or mobiles, your cheap radio will hear static where it should've heard a signal loud and clear. When you buy higher end commercial radios from companies like Motorola, Vertex, etc, you will certainly have less bells and whistles, but the radio will have stellar RF performance so range is measured in tens of miles rather than hundredths of an inch. And that is not going into other details, like spurious emissions, b/c those are terrible too. I can hear those cheap Baofengs on adjacent GMRS channels even 200 feet away... heard about it, tested it, verified it and moved on. So, before giving your hard earned money to some foreign company that is just collecting on unsuspecting buyers, dazzled by color screens and fancy boot screens, just look at used commercial gear from Motorola, Vertex, Midland, Ritron, etc... and if you plan on using it for GMRS just buy accordingly with the legal requirements. Here is a video where this desense effect is shown, basically the radio stop receiving altogether... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUQsZrd3IGo And this is far more common than you think nowadays, with tons of cellphones, WiFis, computers, Bluetooth devices... there are tons of RF noise nowadays that will render these 20 dollar radios useless where you might need them the most. Hope this helps. G.