Review on 📻 Black TYT TH-9800 Cross-Band Mobile Car Ham Radio - Quad Band, 50W by John Graves

At first I was reluctant to invest so much in a China cellphone for my car. It's an exact clone of the FT-8900 which is about $180 more expensive AND with fewer features. To my surprise, I am very happy with this purchase. Chinese radios have been criticized by many radio amateurs, but little do they know that all "Japanese-made" radios are actually made in China, or at least parts of them. This is no exception. I see a well built and very high quality amateur radio. It does exactly the same as the FT-8900 but with transmission enabled on all bands! It can also broadcast in AM on bands 10 and CB. The FT-8900 doesn't do any of that. This is a good addition to your cabin if you are really objective about quality, performance and features. I have a Yaesu FT-8800 and other Yaesus, but I have to admit that it is better than the FT-8900 in many ways. the frequency is busy or has a carrier (busy lock). This is inconvenient and can turn off any amateur radio. Adding to this disappointment is that there isn't an option in the radio menu that can turn this off. Imagine you register on the network, but you can't because you're waiting for the repeater to go offline, which rarely happens. Therefore, you cannot use it immediately when working with repeaters. That's the only thing killing this radio and why TYT designed it by default I don't understand. Make sure you have bought the programming cable and prepared the TYT program to disable this function. Shipping was fast and the seller stands behind their product. Download this (TYT-9800 2.06 Eng) to program the radio: https://drive.google. com/file/d/0B-wmkorOvfaZOWRUOFVESUw1Zjg/view?usp=sharing To fix no transmission due to a busy lock download this (instructions included): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B- wmkorOvfaZTkFrNjd0NHhJcE0/ view? usp=sharingPs. Your antivirus program may give you a warning because the program was developed by an "unknown" publisher. This is normal and I tested it with my Norton 360. Bottom line: you save about $180 (even with Yaesu's $50 discount) with the same FT-8900+ features is a lot more BUT you need to flash/update or use your computer to fix the "Busy Lock" error.