New Chinese DualBand Mobile Radio.... CHEAP...

This rig has been on my Amazon wish list for about six months now. It's not expensive so I don't know why I'm hedging. Oh well.

 

We picked up one QYT KT8900R tri-band about 3 months back worked so well picked up a second one.
One in outbuilding 2 the other in my wives car.
The speced power is actually accurate 25/20 good simplex and hits repeaters 40 miles away.

 

Picked up a UV898 10 watt radio for solar power station.... Good for rural but front end too wide for city. Picks up data burst from utility watt meter as an image on 450 mhz. Programs well with CHIRP software with a few gotchas you will need to figure out as you go. Not a good scanner but good to monitor one freq with very low power drain even with LEDs on. Portable operation would be very good as a battery run setup.
Might look at the triband QYT KT8900R next.

 

Had mine since back in the spring. Basically a mobile Baofeng, and if you have programmed one of those this will be very familiar. For the money, very decent radio.

 

GoodNESS that is a tiny little thing. If the measurements are in MM from the Amazon site, that thing is:
W - 3.85"
L - 1.37"
D - 4.64"
(just found the inch measurements at 3.9x1.4x4.7...so yeah, 'bout right)

And 25W/20W to boot. And it runs off the lighter so no hard wiring...hmmm. I may have to look at that for Christmas.

Looking up info on eHam but does anyone know what type of antenna connector it has?

***ETA***
Radio has an SO-239 connector which uses, as @BTPost mentions below, a PL-259 connector on the antenna cable.

 

Great! I got it in my cart and will pick up this for the truck tomorrow. Now to find an antenna for it...

 

From the link above, this one is "commonly bought together" with the radio. It is rated for 75W.

Link below is a SM referrer link, and it works even though it says "Robot Check".

Robot Check

 

Wow, at first blush I was looking a little askance at those Chinese knock-offs.
But now...
So what if they have a wide open front end? I'd be using them somewhere way out in the sticks anyway.

Last time at the BOL I went for a walk with my Baofeng UV82. The brush was so thick that I came back from the walk without it. Couldn't find it even with another handheld transmitting to it so that I could maybe hear the click, squelch tail, anything.

Oh well, it was a $46 radio back in 2012 when I bought it. Glad it wasn't a $350 Kenwood, Icom or Yaesu.

I got back to my in town place of residence and ordered two UV5Rs for a little under $60. Should be here tomorrow.