BTECH UV-25X2 (Second Gen.) Mini Mobile 25 Watt Dual Band Base, Mobile Radio: VHF, UHF Amateur (Ham)

The Bfeng radios are great. They're well made and now made in the USA. The frequency coverage is excellent, radio is compact, has a rear cooling fan and somewhat easy to program using CHIRP. The few negatives are the knobs were very soft rubber that couldn't turn the volume or channel without slipping. I don't understand why they'd use a knob so 'soft'that it couldn't perform it's important function. These radios do quite a bit and are an excellent value. With that, amateurs or idiots can violate and interfere with public safety units. Not good, especially when public safety is involved. While the CHIRP software is not really associated with this review, MANY will use it to program these radios. The radios can perform many functions that one may not know or understand when programming. If I were an amateur or new to programming I'd go to a 'radio guy' that understands the great features CHIRP offers and will guide you. Lastly, if you program public safety bands and transmit on them these radios can be 'recognized', remotely shut off or located so please play within your boundaries.

Nice compact radio. Takes a little learning to get it set up just right, but worth it. Book is pretty good to find all the features. Easy to understand. Nice little package. Not too bad to program with Chirp. Easy to import band packages. All the settings to scan and retain on start up. Nice to have the option to use a power port for juice :) I am a radio tech for fire and amateur radio operator. It takes a decent radio to impress me. I am impressed.

There are some good reviews which I won't try to duplicate. My take is this... overall, very impressed. I LOVE that you can fully customize all background and text colors on the screen. If you are partially colorblind, this is a blessing. Next, I love the size. This is extremely compact and I was pleased to see it had a fan. Some of the cheaper chinese radios don't. This makes me more comfortable using it for longer periods. You can directly input frequencies from the keypad on the mic, but you have to go through the typical baofeng menu structure to change repeater mode, offset, tones, etc. Once you recall the menu numbers, it isn't bad, but more difficult than some of the name brand counterparts. I'm not a huge fan of the PTT button on the mic, it's big and sticks out quite a bit. I'm also not a big fan of the fact it requires yet another programming cable. I have HT cables, RJ45 cables, serial cables, etc. This one is a USB to 1/8" stereo cable. You need that if you want to program it. It's possible to program without a computer/data cable, but you need to have a free day and a lot of patience. If you are impatient and try to program manually, you'll probably put it through a window before you complete the task. Audio quality is good, power draw is good, easy of use is good (once programmed and even for a single VFO). Overall, I am quite impressed and would call it a good purchase. I'd like to have another one!

As a very newly licensed ham, I'm starting to build my equipment. For the home station HF gear, I went with equipment made by the time-honored manufacturers in amateur radio. For mobile, though, I decided that economy was an important factor on par with performance. I decided to try the BTech Mini UV-25X2 for my mobile 2 meter / 70 cm needs. So far, I am very glad that I did. I ordered the radio with the programming cable and was able to quickly load up all of the local repeaters using CHIRP. Do be sure to get the latest version of CHIRP though so that this radio is supported. The version I was using for my BTECH HT did need to be updated. Once I did that, the radio was set and ready for use. I'll likely take some of the repeaters out of rotation as I get more experience with where the traffic is in my area. I also included the antenna in my order and I found, using my VNA, that it was well tuned to the bands of interest. Put it all together and was up and running in a very short time. I also want to complement the folks at BTECH. They've been very proactive in reaching out to me with offers of assistance should the need arise. So far, I've not had any need to contact them but the proactive touch is much appreciated. I'm glad I decided to get this radio and glad that I bought it through BTECH. If you are looking for a decent radio at a decent price, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that you consider this radio.