BTECH UV-25X2 (Second Gen.) Mini Mobile 25 Watt Dual Band Base, Mobile Radio: VHF, UHF Amateur (Ham)

The Bfeng radios are great. They're well made and now made in the USA. The frequency coverage is excellent, radio is compact, has a rear cooling fan and somewhat easy to program using CHIRP. The few negatives are the knobs were very soft rubber that couldn't turn the volume or channel without slipping. I don't understand why they'd use a knob so 'soft'that it couldn't perform it's important function. These radios do quite a bit and are an excellent value. With that, amateurs or idiots can violate and interfere with public safety units. Not good, especially when public safety is involved. While the CHIRP software is not really associated with this review, MANY will use it to program these radios. The radios can perform many functions that one may not know or understand when programming. If I were an amateur or new to programming I'd go to a 'radio guy' that understands the great features CHIRP offers and will guide you. Lastly, if you program public safety bands and transmit on them these radios can be 'recognized', remotely shut off or located so please play within your boundaries.

I was on the fence about this unit for a long time but the introduction of that k1 adapter to the mic slot sold me on it.I was curious if it would work with the Mobilinkd tnc 4 that I have to use it for aprs and winlink. I’m happy to report that yes indeed it does work. Messed around with the settings a little bit and within 10 mins of setting up, I was getting into my local digipeaters and successfully using weather bot.I replaced the connector it had on the power cable with Anderson power poles and it draws around 5 amps on transmit, .15 amps on standby. My meter is saying it puts out 20W on vhf and 16-17 on uhf. 220 is actually able to send the full 25 watts says my meter.I haven’t used the unit too much but due to its size and weight and low power consumption, I’m really growing to like this little guyNow for the not so good part. The screen is very… finicky. I powered it on for the first time and it was… upside down. After some unplugging and plugging back in, the screen returned to normal. Powered it on in the car and now only half the screen works. Unplug and plug again and now it looks fine. It seems to do this at random. It’s a real nuisance but it doesn’t affect the function of the radio it seems.

As a very newly licensed ham, I'm starting to build my equipment. For the home station HF gear, I went with equipment made by the time-honored manufacturers in amateur radio. For mobile, though, I decided that economy was an important factor on par with performance. I decided to try the BTech Mini UV-25X2 for my mobile 2 meter / 70 cm needs. So far, I am very glad that I did. I ordered the radio with the programming cable and was able to quickly load up all of the local repeaters using CHIRP. Do be sure to get the latest version of CHIRP though so that this radio is supported. The version I was using for my BTECH HT did need to be updated. Once I did that, the radio was set and ready for use. I'll likely take some of the repeaters out of rotation as I get more experience with where the traffic is in my area. I also included the antenna in my order and I found, using my VNA, that it was well tuned to the bands of interest. Put it all together and was up and running in a very short time. I also want to complement the folks at BTECH. They've been very proactive in reaching out to me with offers of assistance should the need arise. So far, I've not had any need to contact them but the proactive touch is much appreciated. I'm glad I decided to get this radio and glad that I bought it through BTECH. If you are looking for a decent radio at a decent price, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that you consider this radio.

Great little mobile unit. Easily programmed with CHIRP software, although I did program initially through the keypad until I received my cable and it wasn't difficult but a bit time consuming. You cannot program channel NAMES via the keypad. It can be quirky when first programmed. Simply turn it off and back on and it should behave from then on.I have not yet figured out how to turn off the dual/quad scan though. I simply tune second (or tri/quad) channel to an unused one if I don't want to scan.For those who see a need, this radio came "unlocked". ;-)May at some point buy another to build a mobile/base ammo can type radio.