This morning I was treated to a YouTube video showing off another radio, it was much like other radios but had a new and important feature. What feature was that you ask? I don’t know, I got bored about 30 seconds into the video switched to a music video. But this diversion at least gave me some inspiration for today’s topic.
There are four features that I consider desirable in a handheld radio, and there’s also a hierarchy of importance to them. Obviously, there are compromises to each, but this is my list of essential features (in order of importance).
- Battery Life – There are a lot of great radios out there that have absolutely terrible battery life, and there are two important things about battery life: what is the standby time, and how long does it take to recharge. A radio with a relatively small battery that can be fully recharged in 10-20 minutes would be amazing, but that never happens. Most ham radios will have a 5-5-90 duty cycle, meaning transmitting 5% of the time, listening 5%, and doing nothing 90%, and are designed to have an 8 hour life. What is unfortunate is spare batteries may be expensive or unavailable, and recharging may take 8-16 hours.
- Form Factor – This is a little harder to describe. Generally, a taller, flatter and narrower radio is the desired form factor. There are a number of radio manufacturers who have made radios that are effectively cubes (looking at you yaesu), that are roughly as wide as tall and don’t fit well in pouches in the least.
- Weather Resistance – Weather resistance or waterproofness is an important characteristic for any piece of field gear, not having to baby it, or worry about it being damaged is a quality of life consideration. It’s desirable, but sometimes has trade-offs in terms of audio quality and proprietary connectors.
- Wide Band Rx/Multiple Bands – Generally a dual band (2m/440mhz) radio has enough band coverage to allow communication in the widest set of circumstances. However, there are radios out there that can receive a broad set of frequencies. In some cases from the AM band to nearly 1ghz. Some radios might have different band splits like 6m/2m, or 6m/440mhz. While 6m is a fantastic band and is very useful for longer range communication, because it tends to be rather uncommon on handhelds it’s not that useful. That said a 6m/2m/440mhz tri-band radio is very useful.
Those are the four features that if balanced properly make a really good radio. It is my opinion that having a large battery is the most important feature. Being able to standby for days, or being able to pick up the radio and find it still has enough charge to use for a few hours before needing to be charged adds greatly to the utility of the radio. I’ve had radios that it seemed like every time I picked it up, it had a dead battery (again, looking at you yaesu).
In closing, I want to hit on a few features I don’t consider positives.
- Flash Lights – This is mostly a Baofeng/Chinese radio thing. I can imagine that having a high powered strobe on the radio might be a beneficial thing in some safety applications, and I have used the flashlight once or twice when i didn’t have a real flashlight handy. It is generally a multi-useless feature.
- High Power – A few years ago radios started coming out offering 6-10w of transmitter power (more is better right?) and generally these radios commanded a much higher price. I’m talking about more than Baofeng here, Yaesu and Icom both offered higher powered models. Most 3-5W radios do an ample job of hitting repeaters and talking longer distances. There’s a diminishing return when it comes to higher power, and the major downsides, your radio gets hot, your battery doesn’t last as long, and your radio may overheat more easily.
These rules are mine, they are not by any means set in stone, but they are my idea of what makes a perfect radio. To the chagrin and derision of many, I still carry a Baofeng BF-F8+ (UV-5R) with an extended battery and a stubby antenna. I talk on it a few times a week, I listen regularly, and I charge it maybe every few weeks. It fits nicely in radio and magazine pouches, but it lacks a large memory, it can’t handle channel banks. scanning sucks. But it cost $25 and I can talk on it all day.