Programming
Programming the KG-UV8D using the radio keypad & menu works the same as any other Wouxun radio, which means it's really easy. I did run into some issues programming this radio using the software, however.
Powerwerx has the software for this radio, named TOOL 15, for download from their website. They also sell a new red colored programming cable that is for the newer Wouxun radios. They don't say what the difference is between this cable and the older black cables, but it's probably just a slightly different chipset on the USB/Serial board. I already had an older black programming cable, so I opted to try that first. If you're using this black cable on Windows 8, it probably will try to initially use a driver that is not compatible. The fix for that is easy, you just need to go to the device manager driver settings and tell it to use the 3.2.0 Prolific driver which is already present in Windows.
I never could get the Powerwerx version of the TOOL 15 software to read the radio, though - it would crash every time. After fooling around with it for a while, I decided to try downloading the software directly from Wouxun.com's site. Sure enough, their version of the software was able to read and write to the radio just fine. The developers of CHIRP are also working on a version that supports this radio, so that should be an option soon, as well.
Once the software programming issues were solved, I really couldn't find any other major issues with this radio (other than the oscillator issue). I'm pretty happy with this little radio, and the fact that its pretty rugged. For the commercial users, it has all of the same commercial features as the other Chinese radios, if that is interesting to you.
Bottom line: I like this radio and wouldn't have a problem recommending it.
