Review on Bingfu Dual Band VHF UHF Ham Radio Magnetic Base Antenna for Kenwood Wouxun BaoFeng BF-F8HP UV-5R UV-82 BF-888S Walkie Talkie by John Mejia

I am using this antenna on a Baofeng UV5R set up as a cellphone in my truck. This is an improvement over any portable antenna you can put on it. I was able to use it to successfully talk to a repeater 9 miles away with a lot of terrain in between here and there. I can't even turn on this repeater unless I'm using my Nagoya UT72 antenna. I have a fake 771 antenna which is great, but I can't get a reliable connection to the repeater with it (just a note, I'm not trying to use the 771 out of a car). I wanted something cheap that I could pack on my work truck and get around without feeling bad about being abused. It meets all requirements. I checked the SWR and it's a bit high at my target frequency. True, this is less than the stated amount. The claimed SWR is <2.0 and I get 1.8 over 146,520 which decreases as I go to 1.05 over 148,000. I think I need to make it a little longer to get great SWR at the frequency I want to use. It should be fun to tinker with. Everyone says the magnet sucks but mine is decent (actually I bought two of these and they're both good). I put it on an old truck, so it might be a slightly flatter mounting surface with thicker steel than other people, but I can bend it about 60 degrees before it pops out, which is quite a bit, and I doubt the wind will it will do . Also, I only saw one review that mentioned that it comes with pre-cut double sided tape for the bottom. If there's a problem with the magnet, I'm sure the tape will come in handy and keep it there perfectly. I don't know what else you would want for $10. I don't think I can buy 10ft of coax, a piece of steel wire and a base for that amount. Keep your expectations in check and it's a good buy