What are the top seven handheld ham radios under one hundred and fifty dollars. I'm going to tell you how I came up with this list and see what you think about it. Check this out. I went into AI. I used grock dot AI or grock dot com maybe it was. It's the the x dot com twitters AI and I've been using it to ask questions lately. Kind kind of accurate, kind of fun. So I said, hey, what are the top seven handheld ham radios under one hundred and fifty dollars? List all their features and you know,
give me it. Give it to me an email format. So it did that, and I think, you know, it was probably about eighty five ninety percent accurate. It put the UV five R on there. I got rid of that one. I'm like, I'm not gonna put the UV five R on a best list, okay. And I added one or two of my own. So let's go. This is AI started but then edited by me and with some extra commentary on the side. So let's see what this looks like. We are going to go in order
of price. Usually when I do these top top videos or best of videos or something like that, I go in order of price, so we're gonna start at the lowest price and we're gonna go up to the highest price. This is the tyt UV eighty eight dual band ht HAM radio and it still shows in production on Amazon, but on by two Way Radios, which is originally where I wanted to show it to you. As on the By two Way Radio's website, it shows that it's been discontinued, so I got to email them and see if there's
maybe a new version out there or something. I don't know, but it's still called a tyt UV eighty eight comes in at forty dollars on Amazon or put a link to this in the description below. The tyt UV eighty eight features are it is a dual band locked to the VHF and UHF amateur radio ban two power settings, five wats on high, one WAT on low, fourteen hundred million power battery, two hundred channels. Two hundred channels is going to become significant, so be ready and listening for that.
It does have FM broadcast radio receive. It has VOX. It includes a programming cable, high gain antenna backlit LCD pros are that the programming cables included good audio and it's compact. The cons are it has a shorter battery life, it is not waterproof, and it has less community support than some of the other radios we're going to talk about today. This is a great entry level radio for those of you who want to get into amateur radio.
For a low price forty bucks, you can't really go wrong with that, and unlike some of the ones we're going to talk about, it has two hundred memory channels. Now, this next one is an honorable mention. This is the QRZ one Explorer radio that was a brain child collaboration between qrz dot com and gigaparts. This radio lists for fifty nine to ninety five on the gigaparts website. Oftentimes you can get this radio on sale deep discount, sometimes free. They do a lot of giveaways with it it does.
It is the same hardware as the UV eighty eight, but it has its own custom firmware a little bit more stable, and since it's sold by gigaparts, you alway going to be able to get support through gigabarts instead of having to contact someone overseas. You know, if you want support for forty dollars. Radio sixty dollars is the list price. Again, you can oftentimes find this on sale.
It is. They did a large push of giveaways for new hands when this was first released, and we're gonna probably be doing some giveaways of it on the next Left's make a deal. In fact, that might even air before this video. We'll see what's more on that coming up soon. Number two officially on the list is the Redivus RT eighty five. Now, at first when I looked at this, this is a two pack for forty one dollars, so technically speaking, this is cheaper than the UV eighty eight.
This one's a forty dollars for this one with an extra antenna programming cable. This package on Amazon actually also comes with an earpiece USBC chargeable battery on that radio, but it also has a desk cradle. This two pack here on Amazon again of the Redivivus RT eighty five, very similar radio to the TYT model. Honestly, there's a lot of Tyt and Reddivus models that are basically the same thing. One number on Redivus, one number on Tyt. Check them out and see which one you like better
and kind of make your decision from there. But on the RT eighty five, the features are that it is dual band once again, it's dual power, five watts on high, one watt on lower, fourteen hundred mili amp hour battery, only one hundred and twenty eight channels, unlike the UV
eighty eight, which has two hundred channels. It has FM radio receive, it has vox an emergency alarm, a very clear LCD, and typically they will come with a earpiece and a charger, although this two pack you'd have to read the details of this link, and you know sometimes you can you can. You can also find these for a single pack, which may come with more things in that listing as well, but this is a two pack
for forty two dollars. Pros of this radio is that it's user friendly, good audio, and reliable short range coms. Cons are again, it's smaller, it's limited accessories and not waterproof. Best for beginners and ham radio enthusiast who may want something. If you want a two pack, that might be the answer for you. The next one on the list is a Balfang UV eighty two. Now we're going to talk about a UV eighty two HP pro here in a second from Balfang Tech, but don't get those confused because
the numbers are similar. This one here is a Balfang UV eighty two high Power. It's one of the first eight watt hts that Balfang themselves came out with. Again, this is a two pack for sixty dollars, so you can get both of these right now. It has a fifteen percent off coupon, so that's kind of neat fifteen percent off coupon on that right there, and you can
get those on Amazon. These have been readily available for several years, and they're a little bit different form factor than the standard UV five R form factor from Balfang. But the UV eighty two HP features dual ban It's a tripower eight watts on high, four wats on mid power, and one watt on low. It has an eighteen hundred million empower battery, so about four hundred million empowers, larger than the last two radios we spoke about. It has dual PTTs, so you can key up the top or
bottom band one at a time. It has a toggle PTT that the switch on the side will toggle back and forth and you can actually this one here shows two switches on the side. I think it's been updated, so the top PTT will key the top band and the bottom PTT will key the bottom band. One hundred and twenty eight channels FM radio receive Vox seven hundred milliwatt speaker on the radio itself and a high gain antenna. The pros are that it does have the dual PTT
for multiple frequency use, and it's affordable. The cons are that is not waterproof, it's a shorter battery life, although not as short as the previous models we've talked about in this video, and some versions lack a backlit screen. So like many Balfang products coming out of China, there are multiple versions of this radio. So the great thing about Amazon is that they're pretty good about returns. You can see this one right here says free returns right
thereough for prime overnight free returns. So if you get something you don't like, just return to Amazon, spend the money on something else, and go from there. The number five on the list is a Balfang Tech BFF eight HP Pro. Now this one is a little bit different. Again, the numbers are the same. The Chinese have, especially Balfang has a really bad habit numbering radios that are the same. The original TYTTCH nine thousand had three different bands it
would work on. It had a monoban two meter mono ban, two twenty mono ban for forty but they were all the TCH nine thousand go figure. So this one is the Balfang Tech. Balfang Tech is a US company that has their radios made in China, imports them, but they are all supported outside or inside of the USA. And with this and this radio comes in at sixty nine
to ninety nine. It has a lot more features than the previous radios we've talked about, one of them being that it does work on the one point twenty five meter to twenty band. It is eight watts on high power. It is IP fifty four rated, so it's a little bit more waterproof, has one thousand memory channels, GPS aviation band receiver, Noah weather, and it is USBC. Has a USBC charge all battery. You can save a ten percent discount on this radio with the coupon code of HR
two F eight HP pro. I'll put a link in the description below to this radio, to everything we talk about today, and to that coupon, so you can save an extra ten percent seven dollars off of this radio at the Balfang Tech website with my coupon code, so go check that out as well. Today's sponsor I want to talk to you about real quick is ham Live. So if you use any of these radios for a net to check into a net, check out ham dot Live.
They have a built in chat feature that you can join a net and webchat with other people who are waiting on the net. This system works on any platform because it is web based and it is a great way to take your net to the next level. Check out ham dot Live and thank you ham Live for sponsoring this channel. The next one on the list today is going to be a yay Zu. Now, everything we've talked about so far has been a Chinese radio, Chinese made radio. Even though Balfang Tech is sold and supported
out of the USA, they're still made in China. Yazu sells their radios at Yesu. Radios are made in Japan, and they might have some crossover into China for some of these lesser expensive models, But last time I checked Yesu made, they kind of switched everything back to Japan a while back. This ft X four R is a five wat dual band HT on the gigabarts website for about ninety five dollars. The features of this radio is
that it is a tripower. It is five watts on high two point five watts on medium power, half a watt on low power. It has a seventeen hundred and fifty million ampower battery, two hundred channels wide band receive. It receives from sixty five to one hundred and eight megahertz for FM broadcast ban rugged design, one watt audio speaker. The last one we talked about was seven hundred and
fifty mili wats. This is a one wat audio speaker, so it's going to be a little bit louder to listen to, and it includes a rapid charger most times. It has a superior build quality, it's easy to program, and it's reliable for emergencies. The cons are it's a little bit higher price, it doesn't have a flashlight. I don't think that's a con ai that it doesn't have a flashlight, and it has an average battery life. It's best for users prioritizing reliability, oh and build trust over
just a cheap Chinese radio. So This is a really good radio for a beginner. If you're again we're talking about radios under one hundred and fifty dollars to day, this one's actually under one hundred dollars. It's big brother is the Yazoo FT sixty five. Now I have one of these. I've used it for a while. I actually did a video a livestream a while back about creating
a win Link gateway that interfaces with this radio. So it's got some extra features like that that you can do with It is a very compact and ruggedly constructed radio. It has three power settings, five watts on high, two point five on mid, and zero point five on low, just like the FX four. It has a big front speaker with a one watt of crisp power, just like
it's the other yes we just talked about. Has a nineteen hundred and fifty mili amp power lithium ion battery, and it has an option for twenty five hundred milliampower upgradeable battery that's good for over eleven hours of operating time. A three point five hour rapid charger comes standard, making the transceiver ready to operate at anytime. Newly to design large white led screen on the display, gives a vibrant
and highly visible display. Four quick recall keys QRK our user programmable and to instantly recall whatever else you want them to recall in that kind of thing. So lots of other features here. We're going to check that out today on the gigabarts website. I'll put a link in the description below. One oh nine to ninety five is what that radio comes in at a little bit over one hundred dollars mark, but still under our one hundred and fifty dollars. That's the sixth radio on the list today.
The last one is you will see right here this radio is actually a little bit over one hundred and fifty dollars. But here's the good news. If you use the coupon code of you of HR two dash uv pro, you can save a ten percent discount off of this radio from the Bao Fang Tech website and that brings it down to about one hundred and forty eight dollars, about sixteen dollars and fifty cents off with that discount code that I just gave you, and I will put
in the link in the description. Blow comes in black and a tan color has a bluetooth for bluetooth programming. Comes with a full Kiss T and C, so you can connect this radio via Bluetooth to an Android phone and run APRS droid and do APRS begonning. You can connect it to Wade on an Android device and do wind Link on it. I have used Woade and win Link several times. In fact, if you want to send me a win Link email KC five HWB at winlink dot com. I reply to all my win Link emails.
But this radio is dual band hf UHF two way APR has full APRS. Is the only radio we've talked about today that has full APRS capability, as the only radio I know of less than one hundred and fifty dollars. It has full APRS capability and built in Kiss T and C, Bluetooth, GPS, text messaging through the app on the BTech app that it has aviation band scanner know whether radio alerts USBC charge battery. This has been a
very popular radio. I did a video about this radio, and I know a lot of you guys are clicking on my links and buying it. Because I get an email, it doesn't tell me who's buying it. It just says, hey, you made your coupon, was used, Your coupon was used. And I keep getting that over and over again. This
has been a very popular radio several of us. Several of us use this radio at the Orlando ham Cation last February and Daytonhamvention last May to beacon aprs and connect to win Link to send win Link emails while we were at the Hamfest. So very good radio one hundred and forty eight dollars after my discount, go check out the Balfang Tech website there. So these are the top seven radios that I have picked from an AI list that I got that I didn't agree with one
hundred percent. Again, ninety percent of these were on the AI list. I got rid of the UV five R, I added the b Tech and I added one more radio. Which one is it? I don't know which one did I add? I added one of them. Some other honorable mentions could be the Kwan Shane UK five that's been a popular one, the t I T thh three point fifty which is still in production and a Triband radio, and the KG nine thirty five h from walks On which has an excellent display, very rugged build factor, and
you can has a color display. You can see it a little bit better than some of these. But what other radios might you have put on this list? If you were to do an AI search and read the list, how might you argue with that list that AI has given you? Check out the links in the description below. Guys, thank you for your time today seventy three. Hope to see you in the comments, and any suggestions you have are welcome. See you next time.