Best Handheld Ham Radio TRI BAND for 2020 - Tri Band Radio Comparison

What is the

best

portable tri-

band

ham

radio

for

2020

? The

best

portable HT that includes the 220

band

along with the 2 meter and 440 band. Let's find out today shut up and sit down. Thank you for joining the channel today. My name is Jason. I'm kc5hwb and in this video series, which is multi-platform, we go over news and how-tos on a lot of new things in amateur

radio

, so if that's something you're interested in, click subscribe, click follow, click the button thumb up. I know what you think in the comments, no matter where you're watching, and I also give a special welcome to everyone listening on the audio-only stream.

I take the audio clip from most of my videos and upload it to a service called spreaker, which then distributes it to itunes, iheartradio, soundcloud and a few other places, so if you're listening today via audiostream, thank you very much for join us so one of my most popular videos for

2020

has been the best

handheld

of 2020. I'll list it. here in just a second somewhere here and you know I got a lot of good comments. There are still people watching and commenting on that video. You know today that it's been two or three months and I thought I would do the best. ht of 2020 for tri band because I'm big I like to use 220 220 is a great band it's not available everywhere so if it's not available in your country or maybe in your area you just don't have 220 repeaters that's okay.

This video may not be for you, but this is a video I wanted to make. Today we will review seven different radios. That's a three. This is a four. Seven. Today we will review seven different radios. I'm going to talk about six of them that I recommend and one of them that I don't recommend, so stick with it here are the current hts that I have in my hand, we're going to talk about all four today, these are basically left wing. to the right oh I probably put it like this these are basically my recommendations from left to right I put it like this so we're going to talk about these three today sorry these four today and we're also going to talk about uh let's see yeah those From there we are going to talk about uh, about everyone, about everyone, uh, we are going to talk about a couple more that are here, all the links for today's radio stations will be on YouTube. description below in my dot co kit link dot co kit forward slash kc5hwb i have kits for multiple different groups of items and radios and this is the one i just called basically the best portable tri band ham radio of 2020 which is also the video title , so we're going to talk about these six today and you can find links to all of them in the kit.co link found in the video description below, so the first one I'll tell you about is this uh bail fang. and I just reviewed this one recently, this is a belfang uv 9s, it's about 35 retail, it includes the 2 meter band, 220 and 440, like everyone does today, like I said, and it's dual screen, so what some of them most of them are actually dual screen and you can go to 220 and four and it has 220 and two meters there you can also go to 440.

So sometimes I'm scanning the band and select put some intermod or some birdies on the other side and, uh, and wouldn't you know it, it just picks up some interference where it doesn't have any, but it's got the standard bailfang menu, it's got the standard bailfang drums, it's got the belt clip. on the radio itself so that's always a plus in my opinion, it comes with two separate antennas, it comes with a 2 meter 40 dual band antenna and it comes with a 220 antenna which is a little shorter than this one, of about height, which is a 220 Single Band Antenna, I'm not particularly interested in those, I mean, that's a drawback of some of the radios that come with dual antennas instead of a tri-band antenna.

I don't particularly care about that, but depending on what you do. I'll use it because it may or may not be for you so consider that when purchasing just a heads up, the second one I want to talk about is pretty much the same and this is not one I've actually used. Myself, but it was one that someone in a comment somewhere mentioned to me and said, Hey, you should check out this radio, so I have one of these on order and I'll do a separate standalone video, but for 32.99 on Amazon . It's an Amazon choice. Amazon's Choice recommends highly rated and well-priced products.

That means people have given it a high rating. It has 4 out of 5 stars right here, you can see 4.3 out of 5 stars. Most people rate it 66 percent of people rate it 5 stars, so this is a bf r3 bravo foxtrot romeo 3, it's a triband, it goes from 220 to 260. One thing you'll want to keep an eye on Safety is to make sure that if you are going to get a 220 radio, especially from China, that it goes up to 220. Some of these radios, for whatever reason, say they include 220, but if you read the box or the description on the website carefully, pass from 240 to 260.

So no. Sometimes I don't understand the 220 band very well, depending on where you get it, depending on what radio it is, where the manufacturer is, sometimes they don't understand the 220 band, which is basically only available in North America. So, that's how it will be. just keep an eye out for that, so if you find a new 220 radio, find it on eBay, find it on Amazon somewhere else, make sure that when it says 220, it actually goes down to 220 because the amateur part of the 220 band is 222. megahertz to two to five megahertz, so if you just go from 240 to 260 it's not going to do any good for that band, so the next one I'm going to talk about is the tyt th 350.

Now, the really cool thing about this radio here This is configured above. I shouldn't say up. This one is separate from the others. It's a very bright screen and you can't see it's there. Okay, so the screen, although you can see it right there where it is. Are the three bands displayed on the screen okay? So you have two meters 220 and 440. You don't have to choose two of the two bofangs that we just talked about and one of the other ones that we are going to talk about. here in a second they don't, they only show two bands at a time, so as long as they are three bands they will go to three bands and transmit in three bands and you can use them in three. bands on your local repeater without any problem, you will only be able to display two bands at a time, so you can do two meters and four forty-two meters and two twenty-two twenty-four forty, etcetera, etcetera, this right here all three are shown bands so you can monitor now it's it's it's trying it's what it's like being awake it's not it's not receiving all three at the same time so if you have activity on all three bands at the same time you're not going to listen to everything at the same time, it will observe and monitor these three bands and the one that plays first will be the one you hear activity on, it will temporarily mute the other two while you listen to the main band that is receiving activity the first band that received activity, but this is a really cool radio unlike the two bofangs on the ones we just talked about and one of the other ones we'll talk about here in a second, this one actually comes with a tri-band antenna.

It has this uh, this shangda, it's called a shangda, it's a Chinese antenna with a Chinese radio, so you shouldn't be too disappointed. It is a 13 inch shengda tri band 144, 220 and 430 antenna, so it is a little longer than your bowfang antenna. that, so keep in mind that this will be a very good performing tri-band antenna that covers all three bands, so you don't have to worry about the whole dual antenna thing on this radio because this radio comes with tri-band antenna as well which is a trib, try a single screen instead of a dual screen, it's a tri screen and comes with a tri band antenna and at the time of this recording this radio is around 75 bucks, you can probably find it for a little cheaper .

Elsewhere if you look around some of the ham radio retailers have this radio in stock and some don't so it depends on when you look at it again check the websites Amazon has at the moment but Amazon sometimes It is exhausted in gigaparts. mtc, these guys have been known to use it in the past so it just depends on what their actions look like, but the best thing about this radio is that I haven't noticed any birdies on this radio either. I really like it. Could I have had it? This for more than a year. I made a review video a while ago.

I had very good luck with him. I take it to my hunting contract and use it frequently because there is a really good 220 repeater near my hunting contract that we will use. i talk sometimes and this radio works great so the only downside to this let me come back here is that it has the battery on or the belt clip is on the battery not the radio so if you're going to get one different battery like a second battery for it or um or to some extent, I don't think at the time of this recording they don't make an extended battery for it, but if you're going to get a second battery, you're going to have to get another belt clip as well, so I don't really like it when manufacturers do that.

I prefer to have the belt clip on the back of the radio okay so the fourth one we're going to talk about today and frankly for Chinese radios this might be my favorite this might be the most solid this is a b tech five for three okay it says b tech here now bail fang tech or btec is a company in the US that takes baofeng radios and upgrades them for better usability, I mean they can upgrade the transmitter, they can upgrade the receiver, they can do both , but if you compare a btec uh ht that looks like a view v5r, honestly, this one looks like the uv5r, but it goes to 220, you can see the 220 right there, it's 220 in the band there, this is a 5x3, which It's the model number right there, it's small, but yeah, there it is 5x3, which means uv5 model, tri-band 5x3, uh, it's still dual screen. just like the other two bofangs I talked about and it has the same menu system you'd expect to see on a chinese radio or a billfing radio, but this thing I've used numerous times also comes with two antennas and I swapped it out pretty quickly.

I have this Nagoya 320a antenna, which is the same as that tri-band. Let me change that view because I can show it better here. It's basically the same length. Like that Shangda antenna is actually a little bit longer I think the Nagoya is 14 inches and the Shang is 13 inches so this is the Shangha antenna that's on the radio um per t that comes and this is an antenna Nagoya that uh, I bought that separately, no, the uv 5x didn't come with that, the good thing about these is that they will work for any radio application, this one is uh sma female and this one is sma mail, so you can take this shangda antenna and put. it's on a kenwood d74 which we'll talk about in a second, so it comes with two antennas, similar to its cousins ​​uh bail fang, but you can easily swap them out or you know you can use the dual band antennas alone or just the dual antennas, it should say, and just change them whenever you want if you don't use the 220 as much, but this radio has been very solid, honestly this is probably my favorite tri-band chinese ht because it only has dual screen. and it's a choice between this and the tyt um the tyt has the triple screen and comes with the antenna that you want or that I would want anyway um this one takes the normal uv5r extended batteries this one doesn't It doesn't come with an extended battery, I put this one on it extended battery.

This is something else I bought from Amazon. The belt clip connects to the radio so you don't have to worry about that so I can just swap it out and put the stock on. Please turn the battery back on or use the extended battery. The extended battery fits in the original charger and the belt clips are always there on the radio so you have no problem with that, but I have used this in the field primarily on my hunting lease on numerous occasions. times and have been very happy with it as far as Chinese radios go, this one is pretty solid because it has been updated by bail fan tech in the US.

Check out their website bailfantech.com. They're on Amazon, you can buy your stuff there. I have made several videos of different models of their radios and overall I am quite satisfied with all of them. The fifth one I'm going to talk about today is a yazoo. This one and the next one are both Japanese made. This yeizu is. a vx 6r that is still in production at the time of this recording, it sells for about 269 on amazon, okay, here is the gigaparts link, which is okay, it's 20 cheaper at gigaparts right now, at the moment of this recording, shipping is free, you can buy it. with paypal or paypal credit whatever you want to do this is the yazoo vx6r and I actually emailed gigaparts and said guys can I get one of these to play with?

I want to make a video, a separate video, so you can We'll probably send out a lot of those soon. The VX-6R provides reception coverage of the AM and FM broadcast bands, HF shortwave band, VHF and UHF television bands, VHF AM aircraft prohibition, as well as a wide range of commercial and public safety frequencies. The US version allows 1.5 watts of transmit power on band 220, so not only do you get a tri-band HT to use and talk on three different bands on the ham radio spectrum, but you also get all those receive bands and also runs on 5 watts. 2 meters and 220 and produces 1.5 watts at 220.

Sorry 5 watts at 2 meters and 440 1.5 watts at 220. Most of these bofang radios will producethree to five watts on all three bands.Depending on what and you know the quality control outside of China you might get one that works great, you might get one that has one watt on each band so check that out when Once you get it, you know if you are going to buy the least expensive one. You get what you pay for as my advice, like I said, with my advice on the best portable ham radio, just the best laptop overall, buy the most expensive radio you can afford because the Yaesu, although it doesn't put out as much power. on 220 you have a wider range of received frequencies and will have a much better receiver than almost anything on the Chinese market.

Now the btec will also have a pretty good receiver, but if I had to compare it to the yey zoo. I would expect the yeezys to win in terms of receiving ability. I haven't tried it, I don't know, but I have used other yazoo radios and other chinese radios in the past and overall the yeezys have a much better receiver than the chinese ones. stuff, so take that for what it's worth, do your own testing and see what you think, but the yaesu vx-6r costs around 250 so it's a big step up from the other four I talked about a moment ago, but it's going to To give you a much better radio, it looks like it's dual from the pictures I've seen because I don't have one in my hand, it looks like it's single screen so it can only show one band at a time ,uh.

Like the FT-60, the FT60 is a 2 meter 440 dual band radio, but it doesn't just monitor and display one band at a time on the screen, so it's a little inconvenient, some people may find that They don't care about that and that's fine. you know what you're buying the latest and greatest radio I'll talk about and this is actually one of my favorites frankly this I love this radio I've used it for a long time and I'm taking it on my beloved lease. because frankly, I mean you say, well you're going to carry a 500, yeah, I do because it's so versatile, it's amazing, so this is the kenwood d74a.

Now let me come over here. The best thing about this radio besides the fact that it does 220. it's dual screen, it will do dual screen, you can do it, you can turn it off and do a single screen, you can switch the two here, um, let's see, it has a great menu system, easy to follow, easy to program. dual function you can turn off the dual screen and make a single screen like that where it shows the date on the top, it's not a touch screen and I don't care, I don't care if it's a touch screen, that doesn't bother me Actually, maya , when I use my Yazoo touch screen, sometimes I put down my belt to grab it and press the menu, so I don't like it very much, but this is not a touch screen, it is dual. it shows a tri band it has ap uh aprs and gps and bluetooth so I can take this radio and set it up in my hunting stand where it depends on where I am on the deer lease or I can even do this in the car really and I put it here and I put my bluetooth headset on and I can, when I hear activity on the radio, I just walk up and press it and talk very quietly while I'm in the hunting stand, so it's versatile.

It's not necessary, I mean, you can get a headset for all of these radios, but with the Kenwood you don't have to worry about the cable coming out because it's bluetooth, of course, the downside to that. radio is that at the time of this recording it costs around 550 dollars this is probably the most expensive ht on the market today there is a higher price than anything yazoo has now um uh icom no icom doesn't really have any hts right Now I mean yes, they have a couple. The id 52 has been announced and is supposedly coming out at the end of the year around Christmas time 2020, but we don't really have a contender in the icom game right now. since they discontinued the id51, but this guy, but even when the id 51a was in production up until a month or two ago, it wasn't anywhere near the price of this one, I think it was about three and a half, something like that, this thing has five and half a hundred dollars approximately 550 depending on where you go and it comes with a three-band antenna so you don't have to upgrade it.

I put this diamond antenna on it because I lost my original Kenwood tri-band antenna on a trip. It was on, I had it in my bag and I remove the radio antenna when I put it in my bag for travel because I don't want something to press against it and bend the radio antenna and break the sma connector. either on the antenna or on the radio itself, so I remove the antenna, turn on the radio, put it in my bag and leave the original antenna in a hotel room somewhere. I don't remember where I was now, so I bought this. uh I bought this diamond antenna on Amazon and I use it and it works great but of course that increases the price but you don't have to worry about that if you just keep track of your original antenna because the original antenna that comes with it is tri-band and has everything you need to update the firmware.

I have made a video about updating the firmware of this radio. It literally takes about 10 seconds to update the firmware of this radio. Very easy to use. Very easy to see a large screen in sunlight. all kinds of good stuff bluetooth aprs gps full nine yards so it should also be for the price they get for it so if you can afford one of these I know several guys that have them and they love this radio yeah you can afford it. One of these is the one I would recommend, but the reason I list these six radios today is because most people probably won't want to spend 550 on an ht, especially if it's your first ht.

You probably won't want to go back and get the most expensive radio you can afford right now, but realize that if you buy the 35 radio, it's going to be something you'll probably want to upgrade at some point in the future. So among the ones I didn't mention today, there was actually an eighth thought of, the oh shang uv-8 echo, which I made a video of at some point in the past and I'll link to it here. I used it on the course a couple of times and it just had too many birdies too many internal modifications, sometimes you would type in 220 and the uh, sorry, you would get into two meters and the 220 band on the other side of the radio would start to squawk.

Sometimes you did it between 220 and 440. I just thought it wasn't put together very well. Don't know. If you use that radio, if you have it, great if you like it. wonderful, I just don't recommend it because I think you can do better for the price. The other one I did a recent review on was the beofang uv 82x3 and you could honestly see it was in a place where I had high hopes. radius and at 2 meters and 220 it seemed fine, but at 440 the power output was only one watt so I didn't like it. I wouldn't recommend that radio unless you find one where you might get proper output. at all and it's okay if that's what you find if that's what you've experienced then okay, use it, but at the time of this recording I don't really recommend the uv8 echo or the uv, sorry, the uv 82x3. because I've had some problems with them, they're both priced higher than the two bofangs, the first two bofangs I talked about, so if you want something that works a little better, get one of those, the th 350 from tyt and b tech's uv five by three will be a much better option than the two bowfangs i talked about today and the two i wouldn't recommend and of course your yazoo and kenwood will be the best. the highest priced line but also the top radios on the spectrum let me know what you think guys put your comments below if you like this video check out some of the videos coming soon here on uh a la left here in just a second and um let me know if you've used any of these radios if you want to add anything if you think I should have added a model to this video let me know what it is put your comments below. 73, have a good weekend.