Related to GMRS ... KG-805F coming out

[jec6613]

It looks like Wouxun is on a roll, and has some radios coming out for the non-licensed users: the KG-805F FRS radios.

 

https://fccid.io/WVTWOUXUN17

[Lscott]

If somebody wants a really good GMRS radio these are a good one.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184489981820

 

I have several myself and they’re solid performers.

[Lscott]

https://mra-raycom.com/wp-content/uploads/simple-file-list/Specifications/portables/TK-270G-370G-Product-Brochure.pdf

 

 

 

https://fccid.io/ALH29473110

[gman1971]

Lscott is absolutely right. Nice radio that lil Kenwood, BTW... 

 

Steer clear of the Wouxun, Baofeng, et. all... CCR trash, I failed to believe this for far too long... and I had to buy twice... (actually, more than twice, b/c I kept buying CCRs wishfully thinking the next one would be better... big mistake.)

 

G.

[jec6613]

Lscott is absolutely right. Nice radio that lil Kenwood, BTW... 

 

Steer clear of the Wouxun, Baofeng, et. all... CCR trash, I failed to believe this for far too long... and I had to buy twice... (actually, more than twice, b/c I kept buying CCRs wishfully thinking the next one would be better... big mistake.)

 

G.

 

Wouxun is generally better than Baofeng, and for my use, it's fine - and they're priced about where they should be for their performance.  For my amateur equipment, it's primarily Yaesu, and not the cheap stuff, either.

[gman1971]

Well, "Generally better than Baofeng" isn't saying much... really.

 

What is the use, and whats the price point you're talking?

[jec6613]

Well, "Generally better than Baofeng" isn't saying much... really.

 

What is the use, and whats the price point you're talking?

 

$80 for fully programmable GMRS handheld with 100+ channels available, removable antenna, and 5W output, that uses modern computers and accessories so that I can get them new.  Realistically, they hit out of their price range ... not so sure about the FRS versions they're coming out with, but I expect they'll be on par with the Motorolas at least.

 

The Wouxun are Superhetereodyne, and a decent one at that, while the Baofeng are SDR's - they're very different animals, and Wouxun performs much better.  They're not a Kenwood, Yaesu, or an Icom, let alone a Motorola, but they give Alinco a run for their money.

[Lscott]

Somebody is not having a good experience with Wouxun radios.

 

http://www.wouxun.us/index.php

[Bombahook1]

I have a couple of KG805Gs and so far I think they about perfect for my application which is basic family communication. The price was right and they are better than my Motorola Talkabout radios which are pretty good in an of themselves. 

B 

[mbrun]

Looks like Wouxun may be taking the FRS, GMRS and MURS radio market seriously. They already have the KG-805G and KG-805M. Looks like the 805F is imminent, and they have the KG-UV9G which is projected to have FCC approval yet this month according to the Better Save Radio site.

 

One can now infer from the following link that they have multiple additional models on the horizon. For GMRS alone I see a 905G and 1000G model in the list.

 

https://fcc.report/ELS/Cricket-Ventures-LLC/0591-EX-CN-2020

 

Cricket Ventures is the parent company of BuyTwoWayRadios.Com.

 

For what it is worth, I own (2) KG-805G and would buy them again without hesitation. They are an incredible value at their price.

 

Michael

WRHS965

KE8PLM

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jec6613]

Somebody is not having a good experience with Wouxun radios. http://www.wouxun.us/index.php

 

Yeah, but that's vendor side issues.  They were on the hook for warranty issues and not getting the support from Wouxun that they wanted.  I'm not privy to the contract, so can't speak to the details, but clearly they wanted to stick it to them.

 

Cricket seems to be going all-in with them to make sort of like them their own private house brand - Wouxun generally makes products to spec for companies buying them, and their radios are built like LEGO kits ... I think they make a grand total of three distinct models, with hundreds of variations.  And, to be fair, Powerwerx did this as well, and it's worked out well for them.

[jec6613]

Well, looks like it's live: https://www.buytwowayradios.com/blog/2020/10/introducing-the-wouxun-kg-805f-license-free-frs-radio.html

 

Yikes... at $80, I'd pick up DeWalt or Motorola.  The big antenna version can't be that much better, it's still a basic duck limited to max of 0 dbi.

[gman1971]

Motorola has my vote. And this is a much better alternative to that CCR garbage, (well, at 80+ its not so Cheap after all, just same amount of garbage) . The S24 uses Rodina Lite, which is the same receiver design found in their top tier XPR7550 models... while not as good, still leaps and bounds better than the finest garbage Wouxun can make...

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Motorola-EVX-S24-PORTABLE-2-WAY-RADIO-403-470-MHz-UHF-3-WATT-256-CHANNELS-BLACK/383746208130?epid=28034596558&hash=item59590e7182:g:Al4AAOSwpYhfdPdw

 

...and I am sure you can negotiate a slightly better price too...

 

If you want something far more capable, you can find XPR6550s for just a little more. The XPR6550 uses a double conversion superhet and superior filtering on the front end... 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Motorola-XPR-6550-UHF-Portable/293784700438?hash=item4466eec616:g:1jUAAOSw3rFfa1ZY

 

My personal preference goes to the XPR6550, I have a few of those and they are far better than any CCR I've ever tested, and sadly... I own a ton of those garbage CCRs...

 

G.

[Lscott]

Yeah, but that's vendor side issues.  They were on the hook for warranty issues and not getting the support from Wouxun that they wanted.  I'm not privy to the contract, so can't speak to the details, but clearly they wanted to stick it to them.

 

Cricket seems to be going all-in with them to make sort of like them their own private house brand - Wouxun generally makes products to spec for companies buying them, and their radios are built like LEGO kits ... I think they make a grand total of three distinct models, with hundreds of variations.  And, to be fair, Powerwerx did this as well, and it's worked out well for them.

Good point.

 

If Wouxun is not supporting their vendors then as a user what kind of support will one see from the vendor with warranty issues? It would be easy to say send it back to China because we can't support it anymore. As a customer with a problem radio does one want to get stuck in the middle of a dispute between the manufacture and their local sales/service rep's?

 

Anyway it's another data point to consider when making a purchasing decision.

[mbrun]

Lscott that is a very good point.

 

I made my decision to get the Wouxun Radio with knowledge that I may receive zero support from the Chinese manufacturer. Given, the price of the product thought, it was worth the experiment. I truly expect little or no support from them. I did/do expect some support from the dealer. If I do not receive support when I need it, I never buy products from that dealer and/or manufacturer again. Never have, never will. For me, manufacturers get one shot. So they may win in the short run, but only good support will result in my future business.

 

Yeh, I did not like what I read about how the manufacture treated their dealer. Had I read that before I purchased the product from BTWR I would not have purchased their radios.

 

Good point.

 

If Wouxun is not supporting their vendors then as a user what kind of support will one see from the vendor with warranty issues? It would be easy to say send it back to China because we can't support it anymore. As a customer with a problem radio does one want to get stuck in the middle of a dispute between the manufacture and their local sales/service rep's?

 

Anyway it's another data point to consider when making a purchasing decision.

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jec6613]

Lscott that is a very good point.

 

I made my decision to get the Wouxun Radio with knowledge that I may receive zero support from the Chinese manufacturer. Given, the price of the product thought, it was worth the experiment. I truly expect little or no support from them. I did/do expect some support from the dealer. If I do not receive support when I need it, I never buy products from that dealer and/or manufacturer again. Never have, never will. For me, manufacturers get one shot. So they may win in the short run, but only good support will result in my future business.

 

Yeh, I did not like what I read about how the manufacture treated their dealer. Had I read that before I purchased the product from BTWR I would not have purchased their radios.

 

As I said before, I don't know the contract, and I don't know who was the asshole in this exchange.  It could be Wouxun was entirely above board and their retailer caused the problem, which isn't uncommon in business at all, and wouxun.us just threw up that message as a bit of a poison pill - again, no idea.  Since HRO sells them though, I don't think they can be that bad.

 

And I figure that that at worse I'll get better support from this than I will with a 10+ year old Kenwood or Motorola from eBay ... not least of which because my credit card will refund it.

[gman1971]

You figure...? Respectfully, that kind of statement denotes some lack of understanding about what support is.

 

First off, HRO sells what makes them money, not what is necessarily good (or bad).

 

There is a trend nowadays to buy cheap garbage coming from China like its something special...  and I know that very well, I bought a lot of it... and unfortunately for me, now I can't seem to be able to get rid of most it b/c its just worthless...  or how much do you think a used BF-888s would go for? 3 dollars? 2 dollars? when they are like 8 dollars new... so... you work the math. Best of all? back when I purchased my BF-888s, several years ago, they were like 39 bucks a pop... I didn't thought the were that bad too.

 

How can one get better support from a company that doesn't even have a single schematic available?, (which also seem to have screwed the business owner at www.wouxun.com) AFAIK there are no (known) service manuals, or procedures to repair these turds, or even how to align them it ever needs alignment? If the thing breaks you're basically SOL. Been there, done that with the CCRs... ... first comes the sledge, then into the garbage bin, where it really belongs.

 

All my XPR and EVX radios were purchased from eBay, some were pristine, some had a few scratches, few have letter engravings, others required some cleaning , even one required wetsanding and rubbing compound to make screen brand new, again... even with those scratches, nicks, engravings etc, these used XPR radios demolished every other radio I own, including the EVX radios, on ISOTEE tests and on real world performance. To date I haven't had a single issue with any of those used commercial radios, neither EVX nor XPRs, and one of them EVX-539 fell off the rooftop of my house into the concrete patio... radio still works to this day.

 

But you know what is the best of all? That a couple months or so ago I didn't know a darn thing about Motorola radios. So, I just started downloading from MOL, and other places, the XPR radio service manuals to read them. Yes, Motorola has service manuals for all their radios, including the old ones... talk about support! There is a plethora of support for old Motorola radios, improvements, mods, you just don't know it.

 

A mint used XPR6550 (w/charger and battery) might only be 150 bucks average on eBay today, perhaps cheaper if you looked elsewhere, but you forget the fact that an XPR6550 was a top of the line 1000 dollar radio back when it was new 10+ years ago. The Wouxun, new, is just an 80 dollar CCR bottom of the barrel crap radio... In 10 years, the Wouxun will probably be in some landfill, whereas most Motorola XPR7550e that are in circulation today will still be in circulation in 10, or even 20 years, b/c those radios just work, and very well while at it. A broken, non operational, XPR7550e is worth more than your Wouxun new... that should hint you about how good these radios actually are. So, why do they sell a broken XPR7550e for 250 bucks? well, b/c someone skilled can easily fix them, thanks to the plethora of service manuals, and replacement parts you can buy from Motorola... and you really believe there is no support...??

 

So, to conclude: What does the extra 920 dollars gets you over an 80 dollar Wouxun, Baofeng, TYT, CCR et. all? What about a 35dBm better effective sensitivity over an XPR6550? Yes, a 35 dBm difference in effective sensitivity is quite a statement, which in real world translates more or less to the CCR unable to hear past 1/2 a mile a 4W UHF portable in most terrain types, except flat, and the XPR6550 will keep on working at well over 2 miles out, ground to ground, on 4W UHF, in hilly suburban environment... other than that, the Wouxun is great.

 

G.

[jec6613]

Speak for yourself, but there are published schematics, alignment, and tune-up, and all you have to do is ask Wouxun for them.  Baofeng, TYT, Anytone, etc are all different companies, of course.

 

And honestly, 35 dbm sensitivity doesn't matter one bit to me, their selectivity is the same, and I'm rarely in a quiet enough environment for the sensitivity to matter.  This may shock you some, but I have a Wouxun DMR handset that outperforms the Hyteras and is roughly on par with the Motorolas getting in and out of TRBO repeaters, as well as simplex.

 

Of course, on the other hand, I've also seen Wouxuns that are only a hair better than a Baofeng at twice the price.

 

CCRs are a, "Buyer beware," jungle ... some gems in with the pile of manure.  But for me, that's not a problem to quickly sort them out.

 

 

 

 

 

First off, HRO sells what makes them money, not what is necessarily good (or bad).

 

This wasn't a comment about their quality of equipment, merely the quality of them as a supplier.  They have a pretty low tolerance for dealing with a bad supplier.

[gman1971]

As a general rule, getting into ham/gmrs repeaters shouldn't be used as a test of how good your radio is. Why? b/c its the repeater what is really doing all the work...  again, measuring how good a radio is by its ability to hit repeaters with ranges measured circa the 50-60 miles mark, its absolutely preposterous.

 

After measuring a lot or radios, I already knew outperforming Hyteras was rather easy to do.. so... moral of the story: Don't buy a Hytera, don't buy a Wouxun, both equally terrible, and the same applies to Baofeng, TYT, Retevis... et. all.

 

I am rather curious to hear from you what Motorola radio did you compare the Wouxun in simplex and what was the test procedure.

 

And best for last: Not sure why you said it, but your 35dBm statement not being important to you, respectfully, shows a careless attitude towards others who might actually need those 35dBm and not know they actually need. Misleading and careless statements like yours, mislead me into believing that CCRs were "not that bad" for a long time.... so I kept buying them, getting the next model priced up, all the way up to the Anytone AT-578, a 400 dollar CCR... all with the same disappointing results, and while the 400 dollar AT-578 was certainly better, we are talking a 400 dollars radio here, hardly a CCR!! So at that point there wasn't anything CRR left to try, so I decided to finally listen to the "so called" brand snobs... and sure enough, range started to increase, so I listened more, not only about radios, measuring equipment, cables, antennas, connectors, filters... you name it... And now that I can actually measure signal RSSI with my radios, I can factually state that a 35 dBm desense in the Madison, Wisconsin area is the difference between having roughly a ~1 mile range vs 15+ miles from my house base...  If that isn't important to you, I am sure it is important to others.

 

To conclude: Buying a used quality radio is not misleading anyone, those radios will resell for nearly the same amount of money you paid for them... so if you don't like the hobby, or whatever, then you can recoup all your investment, as opposed to just losing half of your investment, b/c nobody wants a used CCRs when they can be had, new, for a few extra bucks. 

 

G.

 

 

 

 

Speak for yourself, but there are published schematics, alignment, and tune-up, and all you have to do is ask Wouxun for them.  Baofeng, TYT, Anytone, etc are all different companies, of course.

 

And honestly, 35 dbm sensitivity doesn't matter one bit to me, their selectivity is the same, and I'm rarely in a quiet enough environment for the sensitivity to matter.  This may shock you some, but I have a Wouxun DMR handset that outperforms the Hyteras and is roughly on par with the Motorolas getting in and out of TRBO repeaters, as well as simplex.

 

Of course, on the other hand, I've also seen Wouxuns that are only a hair better than a Baofeng at twice the price.

 

CCRs are a, "Buyer beware," jungle ... some gems in with the pile of manure.  But for me, that's not a problem to quickly sort them out.

 

 

 

 

This wasn't a comment about their quality of equipment, merely the quality of them as a supplier.  They have a pretty low tolerance for dealing with a bad supplier.

[Lscott]

Speak for yourself, but there are published schematics, alignment, and tune-up, and all you have to do is ask Wouxun for them.  Baofeng, TYT, Anytone, etc are all different companies, of course.

 

Well I'll find out with TYT. I have one of their cheap radios when I'm not particular about the performance. This one the internal microphone quit working, external speaker mic works fine. I suspect its a problem with the jack or a cracked solder connection on the circuit board. Either way I sent their tech support an email asking for a schematic and or service manual for it. I'll see if I really get one.

 

As a side note all of my Ham and commercial Kenwood radios I have the service manuals for them EXCEPT for the newest model, TH-D74A. All the other ones were easy to find and download online. 

 

https://www.mods.dk/manual.php

[jec6613]

And best for last: Not sure why you said it, but your 35dBm statement not being important to you, respectfully, shows a careless attitude towards others who might actually need those 35dBm and not know they actually need.

 

This is really simple ... if I can hear 10 dBm into the noise, what does an extra 35dbm of noise get me?  I might be able to filter down to 1-2 dBm into the noise, but 45 dBm is just completely pointless.

 

Sensitivity is almost never the problem, selectivity is - the ability to reject nearby signals and filter them out.

 

As for which MOTOTRBO set, I didn't ask too much about it, it was the ones the local constabulary are issued.

 

Also, I have to question... why are you posting about using all of these radios which are illegal in GMRS, on a GMRS forum?

[AdmiralCochrane]

They could still have legal use. Just because they are illegal to transmit on GMRS doesn't mean they are illegal to use to receive GMRS,  

'

[gman1971]

Effective Sensitivity has very little to do with receiver sensitivity. Sounds like you don't know what Effective Sensitivity is... b/c your statement about selectivity vs sensitivity clearly denotes you are confusing terminology here. Its okay to be confused... I was too...

 

That statement about sensitivity not being important is also misleading. You still need enough sensitivity to pick the signals you want to pick. If you are dealing with signals in the -100 dBm range, then a receiver that has a sensitiviy of -90 dBm won't work. Much the same applies for Effective Sensitivity. If you're dealing with -100 dBm signals and the Effective Sensitivity of the receiver is only -79 dBm (as observed in many CCRs) then you won't hear zip.

 

Effective Sensitivity is never the advertised sensitivity. Although most CCR radios usually have a bit lower absolute sensitivity than most high end stuff, EVX-5300 mobile, as measured, can detect the presence of signals, reliably down to -129 dBm... most CCRs, stop detecting those faint signals at around -124 dBm, as measured. That is the absolute Receiver sensitivity in an ideal conditions.... which is absolutely meaningless. The problem is that once you take these radios off the service monitor/signal generator cable, the EVX-5300 immediately suffers a 5-10 dBm reduction in effective sensitivity, just by being exposed to the RF noise from everything around, thus leaving the EVX-5300 mobile at about -118dBm (0.28uV) to -122dBm (0.18uV) Effective Sensitivity depending on how strong the off band signals used to calculate it are. On the other hand, the CCRs immediately suffer a massive -45 dBm reduction in Effective Sensitivity due to lack of filtering (which is the sum of selectivity AND off band rejection), so if the CCR crap receiver had an absolute sensitivity of -124 dBm (0.14uV), now the Effective Sensitivity is 124 dBm MINUS 45 dBm, and what once was a respectable -124 dBm absolute sensivitiy, now is a mediocre 79 dBm (25.089uV ) Effective sensitivity, so the CCR in question will be unable to hear anything that is fainter than 79dBm.... which around where I live is less than 300 meters... 

 

A 35 dBm relative desense is the difference between < 1 mile and 15 miles in Madison WI for an antenna placed at 40 feet AGL, as measured... so the question now is. Have you measured it?

 

Nothing in RF wireless communications is ever simple. Not sure if your statement denotes ignorance or arrogance.... but whatever of the two, not good. 

 

And best for last, as always: deflecting to a legality matter when you haven't provided any factual data to support your misleading claim about 35 dBm being irrelevant is a rather sleazy and cheap tactic...   which deflects from the real issue at hand: that those radios are garbage.

 

G.

 

 

This is really simple ... if I can hear 10 dBm into the noise, what does an extra 35dbm of noise get me?  I might be able to filter down to 1-2 dBm into the noise, but 45 dBm is just completely pointless.

 

Sensitivity is almost never the problem, selectivity is - the ability to reject nearby signals and filter them out.

 

As for which MOTOTRBO set, I didn't ask too much about it, it was the ones the local constabulary are issued.

 

Also, I have to question... why are you posting about using all of these radios which are illegal in GMRS, on a GMRS forum?

[dwmitchell61]

My cucumbers better than your zucchini...

The Motorola T800 (let's be comparing apples with apples) is most likely a CCR made across the street from the "Wouhon"...

 

I'd rather have a 1964 Chevy Nova than any,of the foreign produced 2020 Chevies of today, too.

 

Looks like everyone is discussing the obvious here.

 

Question is, how are we as customers going to convince the corporations to move production back to the states, when they have cheap Chinese labor?

 

The argument here is nothing more than stating the sad current state of affairs the US has got itself into...

[gman1971]

Mostly true, that last statements... b/c I do own cucumbers and zucchini...  and its a verifiable fact, with data, which ones are better in terms of radio performance.

 

This is more than just a cheap labor issue, there is rampant IP theft and plagiarism too, which is seemingly encouraged overseas...

 

I feel the same way about the cheap labor situation too. At this point the only way to stop the onslaught is by enacting tariffs at the borders to allow US made products, crafted by workers paid 20+ dollars an hour, to compete with products made by overseas workers paid under 2 dollars a week. Then enact treaties which state that if you want to sell something in the US, you'll have to pay your overseas workforce a competitive rate comparable to US workers, or something like that. That is the only way we are going to get manufacturing jobs back, plus those kind of treaties also help the guys overseas not being abused.

 

As for the T800, I am not exactly sure where its made, but it is very likely made in Malaysia, like my XPR7550e are.

 

G.

 

My cucumbers better than your zucchini...
The Motorola T800 (let's be comparing apples with apples) is most likely a CCR made across the street from the "Wouhon"...

I'd rather have a 1964 Chevy Nova than any,of the foreign produced 2020 Chevies of today, too.

Looks like everyone is discussing the obvious here.

Question is, how are we as customers going to convince the corporations to move production back to the states, when they have cheap Chinese labor?

The argument here is nothing more than stating the sad current state of affairs the US has got itself into...