Radio

How does the TYT TH-UV88 compare to a Baofeng UV-5R? First, the good points.* Comes with a programming cable, and it works -- PC and Mac. (A "proper" Baofeng programming cable doesn't work, despite looking similar.)* Supports CHIRP, though it doesn't offer the same level of customization as with the UV-5R.* Case feels a lot more solid.* Charger connection feels more secure.* Buttons have a tighter "snap", and the "underbutton" feels less likely to slip out of place.* Louder (almost too loud), with better sound quality.* Not nearly as prone to overloading, or randomly breaking squelch when there's no carrier, even with the squelch set to 1.* 200 memories vs 128.* 26 dedicated memories for FM broadcast radio.* 10 character names for a memory slot. (No memory names for FM broadcast radio, though.)* Memory names can use both uppercase and lowercase letters.* The display shows numbers in bold. A channel name with mixed letters and numbers without spaces (example: "147.165ROC") is still quite legible.* LCD light level is adjustable.* LCD display is much brighter and easier to read.* Three FM modes - narrow, mid, and wide. I don't know how wide "wide" is.* Remote stun, kill, and restore. Probably not a feature most will use.* Voice scrambler / decoder. Definitely NOT kosher on 2m / 70cm amateur bands in the US.The Retevis RT85 is the same radio in a slightly different case. The Retevis version of the owner's manual is online, and it's much better than the Chinglish TYT manual, or the regular UV-5R manual.Scanning speed is about 10 channels / second.Quirks and annoyances, compared to the UV-5R* TYT programming software has a lot of Chinglish. It's also for Windows only, and only works when I run it as an administrator, both on a dedicated Windows machine, or Bootcamp on an Intel Mac. The mini CD is useless. You have to hunt down a downloadable version yourself, and it's not on the English language version of the TYT site.* CHIRP support isn't as complete as with the UV-5R.* No way to realign squelch in software.* Up button is left of the down button, like this: [▲][▼]* Can't press and hold up/down buttons to quickly advance through channels or frequencies.* Touchy volume control that goes from silent to LOUD in a 10 degree turn.* No way to set or extend the LCD backlight time.* No LCD colors - just white. ("Colors" in the documentation really means light level.)* Defaults to lower / B tuner after reset.* When tuning to a NOAA weather channel in dual listen mode, sometimes the receiver will switch to the other tuner. NOAA 162.55 on A? Here's the B tuner instead.* Have to pre-tune frequencies or channels, and upload to CHIRP or TYT software, to set them as the default channels for reset. Even then, they sometimes don't "stick".* Occasionally defaults to a split channel A / VFO B mode (or vice versa), but no way to do it manually or in software.* Front panel menu / programming is fairly similar to UV-5R; a bit more intuitive in many ways, but there's some not-so-obvious menu options.* Battery life seems a little bit shorter.* Belt clip goes on the battery, not the radio itself.* SMA male connector on the antenna, so you can't reuse an Authentic Genuine Original Real Legitimate Nagoya antennas (or others) from a Baofeng radio. All the SMA male-to-male adapters I've seen on Amazon look like they're intended for coax, not an attached antenna.It has the same "throw radio and individual channel settings under the same menu" UI as a typical Baofeng CCR.Despite these annoyances, I think the TH-UV88 offers more bang for the buck than a Baofeng UV-5R. It's definitely a CCR, but for US$30, it doesn't feel or perform like a bottom tier disposable.

I just want to confirm that the radio I purchased from Lets Get Ready does have a usb-c rechargeable battery and the box includes a usb-a to usb-c cable. It also has an ac dock for charging that way, too.

This radio is difficult to operate and IMO very user-unfriendly.Programmed up with CHIRP just fine. Not all radio settings may be set from within CHIRP. Set to my local repeater and you need to hold the top side button to send a tone to be able to hear what's happening on the repeater, even though the radio shows activity with the light. Each time the radio is powered on, you need to do this operation to hear repeater activity. Maybe this is normal(???) but with the radios I'm used to using, this is not normal.Want to view the frequency instead of the name? You can go to the menu, dial in 22 and change to frequency instead of name, however that only applies to that one channel, going to the next channel displays the name vs the frequency; the absence of a VFO/MR button makes this difficult to use. I do like that you can have VFO or MR operation on either line at any given time, but it's not easy to toggle viewing channel vs name info for presets; once you're in VFO mode, it doesn't display info pertinent to the channel you have selected. Menu item 33, Display Mode, seems to do nothing other than show you the name or the channel number in big and small numbers, it never actually displays frequency.If you monitor while listening to FM, you'll need to disable FM radio and go back in for the radio operation to resume.This firmware is buggy and overall not very refined. Pressing and holding buttons to navigate through channels does not work, you must press and press and press and press, over and over.I have updated to the latest firmware and these issues were not addressed.Sound quality is pretty good and clear! Build quality is about one full notch above the Baofeng radios.I really wanted to like this radio, but it's just kinda confusing to operate. The manual is not clear and not terribly helpfulFinally, the antenna connector is SMA Female, which could be a positive since it's impossible for "the pin to break" since the pin is on the (inexpensive) antenna instead with this configuration.I bought this to basically replace my UV-5R since it has 200 presets vs just 128. I don't like how it operates and even though it's only $30, it's going back.UPDATE after just a couple of days of ownership:I kinda like this thing. I bumped it from three stars to four stars.The LCD is extremely readable and it's nice that they made the numbers bold so you can easily tell O from 0. The screen displays more characters than the UV-5R and that family of radios, which if you haven't figured out by now is what I'm comparing it directly to, for obvious reasons.When programming with CHIRP, using the exact same cable, it's two to three times as fast to upload and download data, even though it has nearly twice as many memory presets. Nice.The radio just plain looks better to me; they didn't try to make it look like something it's not, or go for some cornball aesthetic, it just looks like a radio with a well laid out HMI - from bottom to top you got buttons, screen, speaker. I like having the screen in the middle, and the activity indicator at the top, where you'd actually be able to see it if it's clipped to you... handy since it won't pickup my local repeater without me sending a tone.... (ugh!) It can be set to display battery voltage or a message on power-on, which is extremely useful.The LED light, although an ugly purple-ish blue in color, is quite a bit brighter than the light on my four different Bow-Fang units.The screen has only a single backlight color, unlike the three available on comparable units, but SEVEN levels of backlight intensity. The chinglish manual refers to the brightness settings as colors, they are not.Scanning is responsive. You can change direction quickly using the ^ and opposite of ^ buttons, but as you might expect you cannot set it to scan just a range.Bottom line is that it still is not just quite perfect. Why would it be for $30? I've not transmitted in any meaningful way so I can't speak to how well you'll sound on a repeater, since I'm not yet licensed, but using the off-band frequencies with other radios I have it seems to sound as good or better than the Bow-Fang offerings.Bottom line - if all your weird prepper friends are buying up chinese radios for "SHTF" and you wanna show them how obscure and quirky you are, get this one instead. It works with CHIRP (to an extent, support is still in beta at this time), works with the K-connector or whatever they call the headset/programming jack accessories, but will NOT work without an adapter with antennas since it's the opposite sex, if that's the right way of putting it.Also worth noting is the charger is SO dollar-store-glue-gun-esque, with it's VERY undersized mains-carrying wire and the dirty circuit stuffed into the base itself. TYT, whatever ghost brand they are, even offers, as an upgrade, a type of charging wall-wart and base station similar to the Bow-Fang's standard charger as an option. From what I can tell there are no USB chargers offered.I refer you to my top line.

Seems very well made for the price. Comes with old style cable that requires drives but was able to program using later no drive required cable from Baofeng without installing special drivers for the cable. Was able to program using Chirp but some of the fields are not available for editing as this is an early version of the uv-88 interface. The provided programming software works fine, even when using the Baofeng cable and has access to all the parameters to update. The TYT software Interface is a little clunky compared to the Chirp but fully functional. The radio performance seems really stable with good sound and reception. The display is superior to the Baofeng UV-5R & UV-82 radios and has a white backlight with dot matrix black text/numbers. Still learning all the little differences but really like this radio.Updated 5/21/2021 This radio was a great alternative to the Baofeng at $29 as they were within a few bucks more than a uv-5r. I was considering buying several more. However, now that it is $39 its a tougher call