Baofeng AR-152 Ham Radio 10W Powerful Military Grade Handheld baofeng uv-5r upgrade Radio with 12000mAh Battery Long Range Walkie Talkie Portable Tactical Two Way Radio

I received it a few hours ago, and if anything changes, I'll revise this. But from initial experience, it appears to be a great portable radio. As for actual output power, I don't have the means to accurately test, but on High I'm able to interrogate repeaters up to 30 nautical miles away. It's extremely easy to manually program via the keypad, just like other Baofeng's. The VFO is open, allowing use on the entire spectrum 136-174mhz and 400-520mhz. Note, one should not transmit on frequencies not licensed or authorized to. The FCC will pursue action against persons who interfere with licensed users. It has very clear, loud sound, probably 1 watt, perhaps a tad more. It receives FM broadcast frequencies. It's not as large as what some advertising photos show. It's not going to fit in your shirt pocket, it's size is in range of portable radios carried by Fire Depts./Police. It's about 10-15% smaller than the actual Harris military PRC152 radio. It's weight is also equivalent to public safety radios - but with a high capacity of 12,000MaH which adds a few extra ounces/grams. Spare batteries are available on Amazon, though it looks like right now they are only being shipped from China. Hopefully Amazon will start keeping some in it's warehouses. The accessory jack is the standard Two Pin Kenwood type. Don't try to use any others as you'll damage the radio. I purchased this as a primary radio to take on wild camping trips, and also for disaster preparedness. I've been through Hurricanes Katrina, Ida, and all the rest. It's a benefit to have a radio with a long operating and standby time like this. This, and one spare battery would have gotten me through Ida without having to recharge. Out of power for two weeks. It comes with a "wall wort" charging jack that has the Green= Full/Red=Charging led on the wall wort. No indication on the radio. You can get a 12 volt cigarette lighter charger for this. The only negative aspect is that the round charging port on the very bottom of the battery has no cover. A mini USB would have been a welcome addition. As of now it appears to be a fine portable & looking forward to making use of it. ● Update... I was so pleased with the original that I purchased a second. For what it is, it's capabilities, and cost, you can't beat it. The only two things that could improve the radio are 1) a locking slide on/off belt clip, and 2) a rubber cover for the charging port. Other than that it's a great portable

After the first charge I left the radio on until I got the low voltage warning. It made it 51 hours with about 20 hours of that playing FM commercial radio at a fairly substantial volume, and about 31 hours monitoring the local repeaters, and probably 40 or 50 short transmissions. Based on the battery life of my other HTs I suspect that the battery will perform even better after a few charges.This purchase was after some frustration caused by the poor performance of the extended UV-82 batteries. I normally use an HT to listen to FM stations at work and monitor the local repeaters, then at the end of the shift I turn it off. For reference, the factory included UV-82 2800mAh batteries will last about one and half shifts. The extended batteries (that are obviously fudging the capacity numbers) only last about one shift. The AR-152 on the other hand just made it through two shifts plus an additional 31 hours of monitoring and me screwing around with it .I had dismissed the ar-152 as a LARPing radio with no clip until recently. Now that I have one to play with it's pretty alright. Besides the excellent battery life, the buttons feel really nice and the Baofeng UI is already familiar but on a larger screen. The cons are 1: It's too slick, there is not much texture. I am going to add some grip tape. 2: No clip. I rarely wear an HT, but it's still nice to be able to clip them to things.As far as size, it's about 2 inches taller than a UV-82 with an extended battery.The weight of the AR-152 radio itself with no antenna is 7.75 ounce, the battery is 10 ounces. For comparison a UV-82 radio without antenna is 4.75 ounces and UV-82 battery is 3 to 4.5 ounces depending on the size of the battery.The factory AR-152 antenna is much larger than a standard Baofeng rubber duck, but performance is pretty close. My non-scientific testing is on UHF transmitting to my base station antenna and watching the signal strength meter. But the results are surprisingly consistent and repeatable. The short Baofeng rubber duck returned a strength of 106, the AR-152 factory antenna a 108, the Nagoya-771 returned a 118, and the Abbree 42" Tactical foldy boi a 119 fully extended and 115 folded. I have four of the Abbree 771 copies, they tested from 116 to 118. On VHF all the antennas maxed out the meter on low power so I can not compare VHF performance.I hope this helps, 73

I got this as I needed another radio that I could set up my military grade Falcon III AN/PRC-152(s). It's sturdy and simple to set up provided you don't trash the manual after getting it. It has the standard Baofeng display, menus and buttons. It will take some getting used. This can be programmed from the key pad. If desired you can use a programming cable and it is CHIRP capable. Just be advised when doing so it will not be listed and will recognize it as at Baofeng BF-F8HP. Select that and you can go from there.