Radioddity GA-510 10-Watt Ham Radio Handheld, Dual Band High Power Long Range Two Way Radio with Two 2200mAh Batteries & CH340 Programming Cable, Chirp Compatible

Update Aug 17, 2024: My second complaint is that the volume knob turns very easily. When I put the radio in my pocket the volume will get changed either all the way up or all the way down. I contacted Radioddity about this and they have no solution, or seemingly no concern other than to return the radio. I ended up with a fix where I put a small rubber O-ring around the volume knob at it's base. This gives added friction to turning the knob and by selecting just the right size O-ring it works pretty well...not too loose not to tight. So I'll keep the radio despite these two annoyances.Original review: I bought this radio to use as a cheap dual band ham, GMRS and to receive local fire traffic. The speaker is good, maybe not great but better than my older Yaesu 2m circa 2005. Using CHIRP to program is great and all radios should be compatible with CHIRP. It has only 128 memories which is small by today's standards but I've only used half of them and have filled in everything that I can think of for now. Getting a spare battery is a plus. The charger: well, it's a classic desk charger (with a light that is tooo bright, I put a piece of tape on it's bright center, now it's fine). No USB charging as this radio seems to have been designed in 2019 based on the FCC filings. I was concerned that it uses a now obsolete chip and maybe it does, but it's RX sensitivity is just as good, no better, than my older Yaesu dedicated 2m talkie. So this is fine for me. Are there more sensitive radios out there, maybe, but for some $40 this is a no brainer radio. My only complaint so far is that the little tab things on the bottom that allow the radio to stand on a desk are too close to each other. yes it does stand upright, but wobbles a little when I set it down until it stabilizes. But it's rather thin (1/2 that of above mentioned talkie) and very light with good speaker and decent display. What else does one need in this price range. Oh, I did find that the antenna is rather stiff which I don't like in a talkie as that means a lot of stress on the SMA connector when the antenna is stressed. I ordered a brandX dual band antenna that is more flexible and will do side by side comparison on performance. In the end this is a rather older design clearly, but has modern software, a good speaker and is mechanically better designed than many others I've seen out there.Update after 6 months: the generic dual band more flexible antenna I bought turns out to be terrible at 2m band. So I've gone back to the Radioddity OEM antenna despite it being rather stiff. I've found that dual band talkie antennas fall into two types: 1- fairly well designed with an internal structure that requires them to be stiff; 2- a bottom end fed flexible whip that has tuning at the bottom for both bands. The later type is terrible inefficient as the radiating whip is just toooo short for 2m. The former works better, if you don't break it or the radio's connector from stress on the antenna. I transport the radio with the antenna off and put it on to use it and the treat it carefully. Not that I think the radio or antenna are fragile mind you, it's just that should the radio's connector get damaged it's lights-out for the whole radio.As for the radio after 6 months ownership: it's fine, not great, not bad, but definitely light and with long battery life. I still recommend this radio.

How's that for a dramatic headline? It's true: this is *not* a 10-watt transceiver! All tests on Youtube and QST magazine show it's only 8 watts. But you actually don't want any more than 8 watts pouring into your brain and eyeballs when you transmit, and this HT's competition radios are all 8 watts, too.I decided on the dramatic headline though, because these Chinese manufacturers need to learn that it is *not* acceptable to make such false and inflated claims, if they want to participate in the US market.That's the bad news. For the good news, let's have a quick word about those QST magazine tests: though the 10-watt claims are false, they revealed that this HT is now the first Baofeng-class, wideband VHF/UHF transceiver that truly meets the FCC-required -60 dB spurious emissions requirement! This one is actually legal to use on the ham bands! Radioddity has apparently worked with the Chinese factory to include proper RF filtering, so it can now be a serious, non-polluting amateur radio handheld, with a full 8 watts of output.So this is the one you want. This one is the UV-5R killer we've all been waiting for.Other improvements over the UV-5R include:• More verbose menu names and options, at least for the important ones, so we can configure a repeater on-the-fly while traveling without needing cheat sheets for the menu options.• We don't need to write the transmit config into a memory separately from the receive config; both are written when we commit a configuration to memory.• More characters in the display.• The alarm button is now a tiny dot on the top of the unit, next to the antenna, where it's less likely to be pressed by accident.• The useless LED "flashlight" (and its wrongly-named button) have been removed.• The size makes it feel more secure to grip, and the buttons are now larger for easier operation.Other positives about this radio:• Nice loud speaker, and good reports on audio quality from other repeater users.•The tough plastic case and battery feel very rugged.• It has the same belt clip as the UV-5R, which I like for its ease of clipping/unclipping, while remaining secure on the belt when I want it to stay put.• It is still a "general-purpose" FM transceiver, which means hams can carry a single HT and still be able to communicate with FRS/GMRS/MURS/business-band users. (Shh, don't tell! This isn't in compliance with FRS/GMRS regulations, but a nice feature nonetheless.)• Compatible with de-facto standards, like Chirp software, Kenwood/Baofeng-style accessories, and CTCSS/DCS tones (including separate tone freqs for transmit and receive).• And let me reiterate: this puts out a full 8 watts with *none* of the usual Baofeng "splatter" and spectral pollution! It's a real radio, at Chinese-made prices, at long last!Here are some opportunities for improvement:• Scanning is incredibly slow, and does not let us exclude channels from the scan list. So, if we want to use the scan function, we can't dedicate a memory to the NOAA weather radio channel; it will annoy us quickly by stopping on that channel on every scan.• The left/right arrow keys do nothing. They should be omitted entirely from the next revision of this radio.• The manual still has lots of room for improvement. Hey Radioddity, what does menu option #14, "FHSS," do? By omitting it from your menu reference, you got the numbers of all the subsequent menu options wrong.• The cover over the speaker/mic jacks opens downward, rather than rearward, which means it dangles out in harm's way when a speaker/mic is attached. The UV-5R cover was lower-profile when open.But aside from the scanning feature being almost useless, the other drawbacks are pretty small, right? I'm excited about that. This radio is it. This is the one to buy for your kids when they earn their technician licenses, or to keep in your day pack while camping, off-roading, or geocaching. The price is good, the power level is good, the audio is good, the ergonomics are good, and—okay, I'm going to say it one more time!—it actually meets the FCC requirement for -60 dB spurious emissions. With Radioddity's help, the Chinese have finally arrived, with a solid, rugged radio that we can recommend unapologetically.So, what's next, Radioddity? How about a waterproof version? How about an "S" version with no display or keys? How about an update to the GD-77 with 8 watts output and no "splatter?" With this GA-510, I see they're moving in the right direction, becoming more "serious" contributors, improving quality with new products, and ultimately, they deserve more of my money for it.