E1526: Best Ham Radio Handheld for Off-Grid in 2025 | Off Grid Communications

actually into twenty twenty five. Today's January third. Yeah, we're in the third day of January. And throughout this hunting season and in hunting seasons in the past, you know, I'm out here in the field. That's my Buddies camper because mine's in the shop. Watch my video about all the Forest River problems I've been having on my other channel. We've been here opening weekend of hunting seasons usually the first week in November in Texas at least for rifle season.

Been here off and on almost every weekend for the last two months. Not quite every weekend, but almost every weekend for the last two months. And throughout that time I have used a variety of HT radios for different bands on GMRS on Ham Radio two meters two twenty four forty some six meters, and I wanted to show you guys what I used this year, what I consider to be the best field radio for the end of twenty twenty four going into twenty twenty five. The best

field radio. If you just lose it, if you drop it, run over it with the truck, drop it in the lake, if it gets rained on, if it gets left outside at night, something like that, It's not gonna be a huge loss because we're not talking about the ICOMID fifty two Anniverse re edition or the Kinwood THHD seventy five. We're not talking about a five to seven hundred dollars HT here. This is what I consider to be the

best options for HT in the field. Something that is you want to take care of because it's got a lot of features and you're gonna to spend your hard earned money on it. But if push comes to shove, it's a little bit more disposable than a five hundred dollars HT is. So let's take a look now. Today's video is sponsored by Ham Radio Prep. If you don't have a license at all yet. Check out hamradioprep dot com.

Check out their license courses and their license course bundles they bundle together for an extra savings and on top of that, you can always get a twenty percent discount extra with the coupon code of Jason twenty. Thank you Ham Radio Prep for sponsoring the channel. All right, this is the six hts we're going to talk about today. I've got these arranged here in order from least expensive

to most expensive. Now, these last two right here are kind of debatable for whether it's something you actually want to take into the field, because these are this is two hundred dollars and this is about two hundred and twenty dollars. So if that's too much for you to take into the field, you might want to discount those two. But the rest of these, but these two add something that the rest of these don't. So we're gonna talk about all of those right now, one by one, and

starting with the least expensive. This is the b Tech bf F eight hp Pro. It actually says Baofang on it. It's on Btech's website. It's also on It's listed on Amazon as a Bao Fang radio, but it is upgraded by b Tech. It holds more channels than your standard a UV five R. It's got a little bit sleeker looking design and bfier looking design than the UV five R,

and it will do two twenty. Now, out here in the field where I'm at, there are repeater There are four forty repeaters that I can easily hit with an HT. There's a two twenty repeater about I don't know, I'd say five miles as the crow flies that ways, but that repeater antenna is up one thy fifteen hundred feet something like that, way up ro high. You can easily key that repeater from multiple places. And this local four

forty two six hundred repeater is the Bridgeport Club. Depending on where you stand on this dearlyast property, you can key that repeater. There's another there's a two meter repeater in Tacona. There's a couple of two meter repeaters in Buoi, which is the closest large town to where I am right now. But this is a great HT. Now. One thing I'll say about every one of these hts today, every one of them are USBC chargeable. The reason I chose these radios over some others is because all of

them are gonna be USB C chargeable. And the great thing about USBC chargeable when you're in the field is I have the charging brick video that came out not too long ago. So I have two or three of those bricks with me here in the field. One of them I carry in my pack all the time, one of them I keep in the truck, and a couple

of them I just carry in my hunting pack. So I usually have at least I also have two or three battery boxes every time I come out here, so I have a plethora of ways to charge anything that's USBC my phone, my bluetooth, theter pieces, my radios, my camera that you're watching right here. My Osmo action camera is USBC chargeable right there. So I always want to have something that's USBC. And all of the radios we're going to talk about today are USBC chargeable or at

least the batteries are. Some of them. The radios are chargeable, some of them the batteries are chargeable. This one's the batteries chargeable comes with it in the factory. This one's about sixty five dollars from b Tech. I'll put a link in the description below for this and everything else we talk about today. The next one is also from b Tech. And now this one I have had for about shoot, I don't know, seven eight years. This is the UV five x three. This looks like a bow

Fang UV five R radio. Okay, it looks just like a UV five R. The difference between this and the UV five R, of course, is the five x three also carries two twenty. You can see a very familiar looking screen there with one forty six five to two on the top band and two two four two hundred, which is the repeater I told you about a second ago. That's one thousand and fifteen hundred feet up. I've got

the extended battery on it. Now. This is the extended battery for the UV five R, but it fits the five x three because these is the same form factor, and I've got the try band Nagoya and Tenna on it. So while the radio itself is only about sixty five dollars, the upgraded triband antenna because it comes with two intennas, one dual band one two twenty. I don't like having two antennas for three bands. I like having one antenna.

The upgraded extended battery that you see here. So this one right here is a newly released USB C battery. You can see the USBC charging port right there on the bottom of the battery. The previous battery had a round modular port over here on the side, and it would plug into a USBA connection. But this one here is USBC chargeable extended battery, and I've had that. Like I said, I've had the radio itself for more than seven or eight years. Still goes strong. I pretty much

only use it in this environment. I take it with me hunting every year, and I use it a lot because the two twenty repeater nearby is a good repeater to use. CAC five HWB testing very quiet into the repeater, great signal. Not much activity on this two twenty repeater, but when the internet is up on this tower, it's down on the whole tower at the time of this recording, unfortunately, But when it's up, this repeater has all Stars, so I connect it to my all Star system. I just

really like using two twenty. There's a couple other two twenty repeaters in the area, but this one right here is great. So this is one of the reasons why I bring this radio to the Hunting Lease every year is because of the two twenty aspect of it. This next one here is the UV ninety met This one I've had for several years. Also. This one is one hundred and fifty nine dollars at the time of this recording at by two Way Radios dot com and these

over at Better Safradio dot com. They were the first ones to introduce them, but I think everybody has them now as well. These are UV nine batteries for all the UV nine series walks on radios that are now USPC chargeable on the bottom here too, So I've upgraded all of my radios TOV to this new battery with the USBC charger. Like I said, everything's USBC we're talking about today. I've got this one sitting on Simplex right now one forty six five to two case five HWB

on one four sixty five two. You might have heard that behind you because I have another radio on that right there. This one will do about ten watts for I did a review on this radio when it was new. I've also had this one for six seven, eight years something like that. I use this at the Hunting Lease a lot because it's orange. More than one time I've dropped this when walking to a deer stand or walking back from a deer stand, and a friend of mine has found it driving or walking down the same road

later that day. Because this is orange and it shows up so well. So if you are the type of person to drop something or leave it laying somewhere and you're losing stuff all the time, this orange color really does help when you're out in the field. This is one of my favorite radios, this one here. Now, I don't know if this is true today, so don't go quote to me on this. I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I don't want to make anyone mad.

But this was one of the original UV ninety mates, and this is full open transmit, So this one will work on GMRS frequencies. I'm not saying you should do that. I'm saying you can do that if you choose to accept your mission, which is to get a GMRS license. Get a GMRS license, and then this one will work for him radio and GMRS frequencies, or at least i'm told that it will. I meant to say I'm told that it will work on GMRS frequencies. I'm not sure.

I haven't actually tested it myself. This next one is a b Tech UV Pro. Now this one's fairly new. This one just came out earlier this year. They did some They did some beta firmware for it for a full T and C packet, and then the full T and C packet firm where the kiss TNC firmware was released about a month ago at the time of this recording. So that means you can bluetooth this to a device like an Android tablet or phone. You can use APRS

droid with it, you can use packet with it. You can send you can bluetooth it to a laptop and send win Link messages over two meters if you have a two meter iGATE or a win Link gateway that's near you, you can do that with it. You can do APRS with it has built in APRS. You can program this from the app on your phone. It'll do

a lot of extra different stuff like that. About one point sixty five at the time of this recording, BTech sent me this radio, and this is virtually the same radio as the VGC versions like the N seventy six hundred or something in seventy six maybe something like that. But I emailed BTech and I was like, Okay, tell me all are these radios exactly the same, And they gave me a list of reasons why this one is

in fact not the same as the VGC. This one is a Part ninety certified radio, so it is full open transmit legally, so you can use it on GMRS. Whether that's legal or not, that's a little bit still up in the air. I've been reading some conflicting stories about that recently, and maybe I'll do something about that again soon, do another video about that soon. But regardless of that, a lot of your radios used on GMRS these days are Part ninety radios, Kinwood Part ninety radios,

Motorola part ninety radios. Whether it's good or bad, right wrong, I'm not saying, I'm just saying that's what happens. This one is a Part ninety radio, so it's a full open transmit on two meters and four to forty just a dual band radio. The UV nine and D Mate was also just a dual band radio, USBC charging battery in the back, Android and iOS programmable a Kiss T and C to connect it to your laptop to do stuff like win Link APRS APRS droid and which enhances

a lot of APRS features. And at one sixty five today, that might be a little bit pricey for a field radio, but you know, for all the features it packs in there, and for all the extra stuff it does, especially being able to connect win Link and APRS, I think this is a good choice for field radio. This next one here is also fairly new. This one's one nine nine. This is the new any Tone D one six eight dual band DMR radio. Now, if you're not into DMR,

you probably don't you probably don't care about this. But if you are into DMR, this is a fantastically priced, full featured, fully packed radio, smaller than the D eight seven eight UV two plus. This one is us USBC programmable and chargeable on the body of the radio, not on the battery, but on the body of the radio. I did a video about this. You can go watch

that and get more information about this radio. That same that same tower that has the two twenty antenna over there also as a DMR repeater connected into the Texas state wide DMR network that I can easily hit from this DMR HT anywhere on this hunting lease. So I enjoy using DMR at this location, and this is the radio that I've been carrying this season because of that, because I still enjoy talking on DMR sometimes I can get a fantastic signal into that the Rosston repeater. It's

the Roston Tower I'm talking about. And this is the only radio we're talking about today that does DMR. So if DMR is interesting to you, even DMR simplex, this might be a great choice for a field radio for you. One of the cheapest, most feature packed DMR radios on the market today. Not the cheapest DMR radio on the market,

but one of the most feature packed radios. The last one today we're going to talk about is the Walks on Q ten H. I almost didn't add this one because it is two hundred and twenty dollars, so it's it's not really what I would categorize as a throwaway radio. The thing it brings to the table is you can get it in different colors. It comes in red obviously, green, blue and black I think are the other colors. So it's all so much easier to see if you drop

it in the field or something like that. If you're out in the field in the woods right now and you drop your radio, you can definitely see it as you're walking by. So this one is a quad band radio. It will do not only two meters and for forty, but two twenty like I said before, and also six meters. This is the only six meter HT in the lineup today.

So if you've got a couple of hunting buddies that are hams and you guys really want to get out on a channel that no one else is on, you can get on five to two dot five two five the fmsimplex calling frequency for the six meter amateur radio band, and you guys can have the frequency basically to yourselves. It doesn't get used a whole lot. I like to monitor that frequency when I'm out here in the field or when I'm driving down the road. If I have my six meter rig on, you'll hear activity on it.

Sometimes it's pretty rare, but is it is a cool band to talk on if you're in close proximity and you want to have just like a channel that nobody else is on. Same thing can be said for the two two three dot five hundred fmsimplex calling frequency for the two twenty megahertz ban but this one if you're into six meters, if you've got a nearby six meter repeater. When I did my first video about this radio, I had several people in the comment come by and say, Hey, yeah,

I've actually got a six meter repeater near me. Doesn't get used very much, but if I get this radio, I might start using it. So that's a good thing to know about too. So if two twenty and six meters don't interest you, then two hundred and nineteen dollars there is probably a little bit too much for a knocking around radio in the field that has a higher possibility of getting lost or stolen. But I am including

it today once again. It is USBC programmable and chargeable on the body of the radio, not on the battery, but on the body, so and it adds the fourth band to it, unlike everything else we talked about today. So what do you guys think about that? What do you think about those four radios, the ones that I commonly use them. I've been using this UV pro b tech quite a bit this season because it's been It just came out a little while back, and it's that

kiss T and C function is really cool. So I've been using that, and I've been using this bf FAA because it has two twenty on it, and then my and then probably those are probably the most commonly used radios for myself this year. On top of that, I have used the five by three a couple times, and the UV ninety made a couple of times, and then I did some six meters stuff by myself because there's nobody's on six meters out here, but could be cool to a thing to have for six meters if you're

into that sort of thing in your area. What other radios do you think might fit into this category of Hey, this is a good radio, it works great, it offers these features, but if you lose it, you're not gonna be out five, six, seven hundred dollars like you would if you lost your high dollar Yazoo or Kenwood HT What else do you think might be worthy of this list? Put a comment below. I'd like to know. Thanks for watching today.