New Handheld

[One Country Boy]

I purchased this dualband Wouxun Handheld from a Texas group a few weeks back. I think it was $129, or near that. I ordered a few accessories to go with it. It's made in China, but what isn't these days. It has a low power output and a high power of 5 watts. It works like a champ. Mine is 2 meters and 440. They sell a single bander and also another dualband for 2 meters and 220. Well worth the money I think.

The business is Main Trading Co. I think they are also on e-Bay. They sell a lot of other amateur gear as well.

By-the-way, it receives well outside the bands and I've found anywhere it receives, it will also transmit. It also has a standard FM broadcast receiver in it. You can listen to your favorite FM station and if the repeater or freq. you are monitoring is activated it will drop the commercial station and go to the programmed frequency. Nice feature for me, while I'm listening to Rush.

[W9WLS]

Same company is supposed to be bringing out a dual band mobile later this summer, if rumor's are correct it will be under $200.00 and do everything the HH do'es .
I'm glad to see the "BIG THREE" get a little competition !
Sent them an e-mail and they tell me they have a HF-6 in the work's also, should be interesting !

[Andy N1ORK]

I just hope the others are easier to program than the HTs. You almost NEED the programing software.

[One Country Boy]

Nice to see some reasonable prices, even if it is Chineese. Competition is good John.

That's the ONLY way I've programmed mine Andy is with the software and at times that is a problem. That's my problem more than likely.

The more I try to hand program it, the better I get. The book is not very user friendly. The Chineese to English interpretation is not the best. I did order a fold up cheat sheet that fits in your wallet or HH Case that is much simpler to use and nice to have. The shipping was as much or more than the instruction sheet. I'm still looking for a way to make it bypass or skip certain freqs programmed into memory without having to delete the memory. I know it has to have one.

[One Country Boy]

Originally Posted by W9WLS

Same company is supposed to be bringing out a dual band mobile later this summer, if rumor's are correct it will be under $200.00 and do everything the HH do'es .
I'm glad to see the "BIG THREE" get a little competition !
Sent them an e-mail and they tell me they have a HF-6 in the work's also, should be interesting !

I think I saw where they said Alinco was going to put out a dual bander for under $200.00. I've used a couple of Alinco's in the past and had good results with them. I still have a little credit card dual band they put out, years back, and it works well with 1/3 of a watt.

That company also sells the Texas Bug Catcher and some other well known antennas. I don't know how reasonable those prices are, I've not done any comparisons.

[One Country Boy]

Oh yes, I ordered one of the heavy duty batteries with the handheld, as a spare. It lasts much longer then the battery that comes with the radio. So far it's been a darned good deal in my opinion.

I ordered a couple of antenna adaptors so I can connect it to a mag mount when traveling in a different vehicle. It's working out well and you cannot beat the price.

I have to tell you guys, I have no interest in this company, but will do a little advertising for someone not trying to rip us all off. I see they have a good rating on eBay as well. Whatever that may mean.

[KE5ZRT]

My XYL Terra, KE5ZRU, just bought one of these WONTON radios also. I am surprised at all of the features contained in this little radio. I was able to adjust most of the settings in the menu without even opening the instruction manual. However, loading repeater frequencies was a nightmare. After a couple of hours I managed to store 2 repeater frequencies. After borrowing the programming software and cable, we loaded about 40 frequencies without any trouble at all. The only complaint I have is that the radio does not divide memory channels into banks or groups. I prefer to organize memory channels by location or type. Overall, this is a great radio for the price, and we are very happy with the purchase. I look forward to the new mobile rig, I need a new dual-bander for the RV!

[W5DOK]

Thanks for the post. I'm going to be in the Paris, TX area in a couple of weeks and I'll stop by their store and browse a bit.

[KF5BET]

I was looking into this radio for one the girls. Wound up buying a yaesu (same model for both girls - no fighting).

I might have to go revisit this one for myself. Really want to try some satellite work and would need the dual band.

[One Country Boy]

Originally Posted by W5DOK

Thanks for the post. I'm going to be in the Paris, TX area in a couple of weeks and I'll stop by their store and browse a bit.

Don, if you can, would you take some photos of the merchandise in the store? I'm just curious how large they are? Maybe a cell phone camera? Thanks.

[W5DOK]

Will do.

[KE5ZRT]

I've found two things about this radio that I do not like:

1. Memories cannot be sorted into individual banks or groups that can be turned on or off as needed. I like to keep repeaters grouped by location so I can scan Albuquerque when I am in ABQ and Amarillo when I am in AMA. I also like to group emergency responder frequencies and turn them on and off as needed too.

2. Also dealing with memories, from the keypad, stored frequencies cannot be skipped during scanning. So if you store a frequency such as NOAA, when you scan it will stop on the always transmitting NOAA frequency and the scan will not resume. They can be turned on or off with the programming cable and software, but not manually.This is mostly just a nuisance if you do not have the programming cable or access to a laptop.

Still, overall, this is a very good radio for the price.

[KC1BUD]

There is one thing I don't like about it. It is made not in China, But Communist China. Personally, I have no problem with doing business with the country of the lowest bidder, but to do business with the Communists in China bother's me more than a little bit. Especially since I was a part of the war against communisim.

I guess when all of the other companies can no longer build them for profit then I will build my own, Probably out of Chinese parts.