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As i've mentioned in other posts, we are now only using the UV5R at work on our business licenced freqs (though my one has a LOT more than just business freqs Wink )

we are phasing out the trusty old moto CP040, as a repair to one costs circa £80, and we can buy 3x new uv5r's for the same money!

I've currently got 11 UV5R's in my "fleet" with more to follow, currently no issues at all, very reliable little radios!
Thanks Binnie.

Excellent to have someone using these things on a daily basis, and in the hands of less than careful operators I guess?

Please keep updates coming from time to time. You are a very useful longevity testing lab!!!
well it's primarily my engineers that have them at the moment, so height, tempetrature and moisture will come into the mix at some point

but they may end up on the factory floor quite soon.

the engineers love them for the FM radio and torch function!

the batteries are the biggest concern to me, no one will fully discharge them before placing them on the dock, so we'll see what battery life is like in a month or so
Nobody ever does. Batteries are cheap atm and they won't see any benefit of running the power down.
Its been a while but a quick update coming

now have 15+uv5r's floating about, with another 8 or so still boxed.

the only issues i've had so far are ..........

droppages........... the battery securing lug isn't all that strong, as is prone to snapping if dropped, not the end of the world as you can hold or tape the battery into position

Chargers........... i've had 3x chargers fail, not the end of the world, but its deffo advisable to have a car charger or battery eliminator as a backup!

Aerial..... probably the worst thing to happen is the aerial to fail, so far i've had 3x rigid aerials and 1 x flexi aerials fail, symptoms are obviously extremely poor RX and TX (and also little or no FM reception) for some reason the UV5r seems to ship with either flexi or rigid , in a shipment of 10 i got 4 flexi and 6 rigid. failure may be due to rough handling, IE radios in coat pockets and flexing the aerial, its hard to tell.


on aerials, i purchased this not expecting much http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nagoya-NA-701-...393wt_1086

My radio now has the best RX and TX by far, and it's the oldest one (its my personal one, not the works!) and my battery still goes for 2 days after 6x months of daily use 6 days a week
Hi Binnie,

Thanks for this. Its really useful to have such extensive testing feedback from real life usage by non radio sympathetic operators.

Re the failed antennas, Did the radios survive the failure or did they burn out their Transmit power transistors?

From what you wrote I understand that failures were reported to you because of unit's failure to receive, yes?

If correct, that makes for an easy test of antenna integrity by a daily check on reception from a continuous signal source ( Ham repeater or commercial broadcast station)

Please try and identify how many recharges you get out of battery packs before they start to lose significant capacity. This will be very useful information to know.

Thanks again mate.
No the TX circuits were ok, just had to replace the antenna.

Much easier to get the operators to check an FM source as i've locked out most of the other functions for obvious reasons lol.

I reckon my unit has has about 50 charge cycles at least, but i look after mine, some will have had 100+ of "top up charges" and no complaints as yet
Thanks for the tip, Binnie. I ordered a UV5R yesterday and I'm looking forward to trying it out.