Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Hunter Siemon photo
1 Level
822 Review
58 Karma

Review on πŸ“» BaoFeng UV-82C Dual-Band FM Ham Two-Way Radio with Battery, Earpiece, Antenna, Charger - Enhanced Performance and Versatility by Hunter Siemon

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Warning if you want to use the 90.1 or 90.3MHz FM transmit function

Over the past five years I have had various models of UV82 series radios: UV-82, UV- 82X and UV-82C. One of the main reasons for buying this radio is that you can use the convenient FM radio function. I love walking around with the radio and controlling the ham radio repeaters while listening to music on an FM broadcast. The radio will automatically switch to a VHF/UHF repeater when it detects activity (even if it's just ker chunking or a station ID) and then switch back to FM radio, after which FM radio and music resume are turned on. This radio works fine unless you want to listen to an FM radio station on 90.1 or 90.3MHz. My favorite station is on 90.1 FM. I'll turn off the radio, I'll listen to music, and someone will break down the repeater ID into parts of the repeater. There is nothing but silence as the radio switches back to FM. To get the music back I have to key in 90.1 FM again to get the broadcast signal back. This is becoming obsolete very quickly with all the kernel chunks and info messages on the main relay I'm using. If you need this feature and never listen to 90.1 or 90.3 FM, you'll never know there's a problem. Tried another favorite radio station on 94.1 and no problem at all. This defect was present in every firmware of this radio. I've reported this multiple times. Interestingly the UV-82C is a bit better these days as some earlier versions of this radio didn't work properly either 89.9. So I'm sending it back. I figured maybe an upgraded UV-82C would fix the problem, so I gave it a try.

Pros
  • Decent performance
Cons
  • Great price