Juentai JT-6188 Dual Band VHF/UHF 136-174/400-480MHz VHF 25Watt UHF 20Watts Dual Band Two Way Radios Mobile Transceiver Walkie Talkie by Juentai

Very pleased with this radio. Lots of power to hit distant repeaters. Wife doesn't have to talk to me anymore as I can now spend my time sharing health issues with strangers. Manual Programming isn't so bad as it takes some time, time that I'm focused on the radio and not my lot in life. My only wish is that it had a headphone jack.Just buy the darn thing. It's cheap and works.Full disclosure, no one gives a rip about my opinion. They definitely aren't going to reimburse me for it.

These are pretty new to the market and I suspect that some of the odd firmware will be sorted out the same way it was in the Baofengs. Don't let that stop you from buying one though. There is nothing similar as far as size/weight/2m and 440 from ICOM, Kenwood or Yaesu. I wasn't expecting a whole lot for the price but as it turns out I really like it. For a small car this is the perfect size (a bit bigger than a radar detector).Mine puts out 25 watts towards the top of the 2m band and ~23 or 24 at the bottom (my meter is just a cheapo with a swing needle so not super accurate but good enough). The low power setting doesn't seem to work, other reviews and youtube videos confirm this. It would be nice to have the feature to save battery power and generate less heat.Speaking of heat, it does get warm but nothing crazy. Short repeater chats kept the temp on the heat sink at about 125 degrees (measured with a non-contact thermometer), rag chewing on simplex with another guy for an hour or more and the temp got to 140. I think if you were going to do a bunch of simplex it might be good to stick a small fan on the heat sink but honestly it'll get hotter inside my car parked in the sun.The mic is solid feeling and a very good copy of a Kenwood mic right down to the silk screening on the boards. The key layout is different though. Modulation is a little low but not terrible. Better than the Baofeng HTs at least. I haven't seen a pin out diagram for this mic yet but I might try swapping in another mic. EDIT: Its a Kenwood pinout.Sound is good but not great (its a pretty small speaker) but it does get nice and loud without becoming very distorted. I think this would make it a nice choice for use in a soft top Jeep or other noisy cabin vehicle.Some low reviews here because of programming issues. If you have fooled around with a Baofeng or any of the other china radios you should be ok. If your experience is only with the big 3 japanese manufacturers or you've never programmed a radio before fret not, the Miklor site has a good step by step to do it manually (this is the same radio as the QYT 8900). Of note even if you set the offset you'll still need to punch in the tx freq as well. I wouldn't suggest trying to punch in a repeater while driving (which I can easily do on my other radios) but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to program all the local repeaters in there and be set. It would not be my first choice for a long road trip for this reason. I suspect that CHIRP will support it before too long (it is pretty new to the market after all). But even if they don't the factory software can be downloaded at the Miklor site.Honestly if there was a Kewood or other big name radio with similar features/size/power output I would have bought that instead. But I can't complain, the price is great and it works quite well. I get great signal reports coupled with a 1/4 wave mag mount and the whole thing is easy to move around (rental car, truck driver etc etc).73s

Just like a few other reviewers on here have said about this radio, mine stopped transmitting after one week. Those reviews were a minority, so I thought I'd give it a chance. The radio receives just fine, but suddenly one day in the middle of a transmission it could no longer bring up a repeater it had solidly just before. That evening I checked it out on my frequency counter and power meter. The transmit frequency was spot on, but output was less than 1 watt on both high and low power. I know it is a dual band transceiver for under $100, but I expected better than one week of use. I'm giving it three stars because if you get a good one that lasts you, you will be extremely happy with it but I don't like playing Russian Roulette with defects.I'm returning mine for a refund and will pay a little more for a different, better radio. It saddens me that this radio didn't work out as expected, I was hoping it would be a great starter radio for a new ham. Alas, it was not meant to be. Please understand that this review is based on my experiences and your mileage may vary.

I evaluate many new radios for friends and for myself. This unit is small, compact and a basic starter radio for the 2M and 70cm bands. The radio itself works great, BUT, as you would expect, the programming software needs work. It is not Chirp compatible ...yet. The Software supplied by the manufacturer is very unstable, lacks many features including cut/paste. It is generally very frustrating to work with and I highly recommend buying RT Systems programming software and cable. RT's software unleashes the true functionality of the radio and makes it easy to program and easier to understand.After cleaning up my setup with the RT software, this radio is my favorite mobile dual band. It's indestructible, compact, and so far, reliable.Price wise it is a real value. But considering the Manufacturers software is so bad that you have to throw another $50 for RT's software, it makes it par with everyone else in the Baofeng club.AB1TC

For a low-noise environment, and where TX power is the limiting factor, this works fine. For example, if you can hear a repeater but can't hit it with a 5-watt unit, this might be OK for you.However, the RX performance is dismal. (Not an expert, but going off of my best understanding here.) Intermod is a huge problem in a large city. Even with squelch turned up, the active RF environment of a big city with cell towers, land mobile radios, etc. etc. all around leads to large blasts of noise all over the UHF spectrum. Later I bought a Kenwood on the same frequencies with a better built "front-end" and, magically, the effective range of the same antenna and power watts effectively doubled.I bought two units and both exhibit this weakness.Also, the mike is merely so-so. And the programming is a bit hairy, though Miklor website will guide you through eventually.In the end, if you only had $70 to spend on a mobile radio this might be OK. But careful of your expectations.