A couple posts ago I mentioned the WEP2000 I'd purchased to give mobile VHF a try, contrary to my original plan to just use it for APRS. For a while, I was reasonably happy with it; it was a pain to tune, but I was getting good signal reports and receive was good enough for my purposes. In the past week or two though I'd noticed that while it was working, the receive power was much lower than it should have been, so I went to check the tuning on the through-the-glass box on the rear window.
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I did a short YouTube video on some Pomona 5519a test leads I picked up to replace the really cheap ones I was using. See the video:
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Last weekend I took the TG-UV2 out on a weekend road trip and exercised it a bit - periodic car to car traffic for 4 days. By and large it performed admirably, I didn't charge it all weekend and still had 2/3 indicated battery life upon returning home.
One problem I did encounter was transmitting on a hot day in the UHF band. For a while the transmitter was very finicky, when keyed with the PTT it would beep and display 'LOST' on the screen, not actually transmitting anything.
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The Quansheng TG-UV2 is a fairly straightforward 5 watt, dual band 2m/70cm handheld radio of Chinese origin. It's a fairly direct competitor to the other popular Chinese radios like the Wouxun KG-UVD1. With a street price of approximately $85 USD shipped, it's one of the cheapest dual band handhelds available anywhere. The feature set is pretty complete, and for the price it's really tough to beat. Read on for my full impression of this HT.
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