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Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

Strong disagree, and wish this sort of gatekeeping wasn't present. Go get one of these things. They're $20, and ham radio is a fun and useful hobby.

I have many baofeng radios which have been in many forms of being thrown into boxes, backpacks, filled with dust, rained on, abused by drunks, dropped, etc. and they ALL are still working fine, albeit some with dest behind the LCD cover.

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Oh its not gatekeeping. You get what you pay for.

My baofeng 5 died two hours into a 12 mile backpackign trip across catalina island. It couldn't do a quarter mile line of sight with an airport 2m amateur tower and when turning on the flashlight feature in my tent it died entirely and would not power back on. I was entirely reliant on it for ranger station as well as general comms and phone patch/weather. Packing this plastic trash couldnt have been more dangerous.

Programming is also a byzantine nightmare.

How is it a "byzantine nightmare"? I plug it into my computer, put in the frequencies (and names I want for the channels.), and upload the configuration. That seems pretty straightforward to me.

Im pretty aure they meant programming from the radio itself, without using a computer.

As a fun ham toy, it's fine. For critical safety-of-life communication... do you want to be using any amateur radio? Maybe you'd want a Motorola or ICOM cop radio.

Agreed. I've had two $25 baofengs for camping / outdooring for... Four or five years. Both work fine. They don't see a ton of use but they have been banging around camping bins and glove boxes for that time.

Batteries hold their charge well.

Bonus-- they have FM radios. Weirdly the only thing in my house powered by batteries that does!

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