I have the same HT that is picture. I will just say this....at $55 you really do get what you pay for.
In my case, I live 10 miles from 2 repeaters and 20 miles from a third, however I get reports of being "scratchy sounding" from the 2 repeaters at 10 miles and I could barely get into the one at 20.
My solution was to replace the junk rubber duck antenna with a 17" Comet SMA-24. That only made a marginal difference. While I could now get into all 3 repeaters a little easier, I still was informed I was scratchy sounding.
Also one thing I noticed is the receive on this radio, even with the 17" antenna, is not very good. Many times when the repeater would emit a transmission, my radio would have it squelched out. I tried adjusting the squelch settings. No dice. The only way this radio even picks up anything is if the squelch is turned off, and then you must live with hearing white noise.
In short, this radio is no doubt ok for beginners....if you happen to live within 2 miles from the repeater. I could really care less that this radio can pick up FM broadcast stations, as that's not what it was designed for. Baofeng should have instead used that technology towards a better transmitter and receiver.
But I did find, this radio, with the Comet antenna, is useful for popping GFCI's on electrical wall outlets if you place the radio in UHF mode, then put the tip of the antenna right up to the outlet's GFCI button and key up.
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