http://www.livefromthehamshack.tv/2017/08/28/episode-111-baofengtech-uv-50x2-power-testing/ ------------------------- The BaofengTech UV-50X2 has been out for several months, and has been waiting on my table since it was brand new. I thought it was time to power this rig up and do some power tests on it. I was pleasantly pleased with the results.
I have been through 2 of these UV-50X2 radios and what I found was that they do in fact put out above 50W, but the power drops rapidly when hold the key down: 35W@30sec, and holds 30-35W for about 2 minutes and usually the transmitter shuts down by 3 min of continuous high power. (Into a dummy load) Note that my tests were done with the TX time out programmed to 400Sec, so she shutdown is some sort of overheat or undercurrent protection. The odd thing is that the heat sink barely gets warm as the power drops and the radio shuts down. By contrast, I have the smaller BTECH 25X2 that can hold 32W for well over 3 minutes on high and the heat sink gradually gets warm and the fan spins up to cool the finals as I would expect. Others have pulled these radios apart and found a lack of thermal grease on the final-heat-sink connection. This could explain the sharp power drop without a warm heat sink. I returned the first radio (I had to pay shipping) and shared my test results. BTECH USA sent me a new radio, that I tested with about the same results. When I shared all this testing and requested another RMA, BTECH sent me a return label (this time pre-paid, which was a nice concession) and I sent back the second radio. I waited a week or more for a 3rd radio, but it never came. After many e-mails (they have no phone access at all) I was surprised that that they refunded my money and told me that this radio is "not suited for my heavy use" To me 3 min on high does not seem like a severe duty cycle. It was nice that they refunded my money, but I really wanted to talk to an highly technical person to understand this radio. However; no matter how much I begged, nobody from BTECH would talk to me on the phone or share detailed information about this radio. I might have been able to live with a short duty cycle if I truly understood the limits of the radio, but they never gave me the chance to do so. I also might have opened it up and added the missing thermal grease. But they yanked it away from me. BTW nearly everybody that returns a radio to BTECH will be told that their problem is somehow related to a high SWR or bad cable. This was pure nonsense and an insult to my intelligence as the second radio was ONLY OPERATED INTO 50 OHM DUMMY LOAD WITH DOUBLE MALE CONNECTORS. It seems like the tech support people only pull responses from an FAQ list or sometimes from a Milkor website. That being said, I am happy with the smaller UV-25X2 and have actually purchased a second one that seems to put out as much power during 3 min as the 50X2. Perhaps the 25X2 has some thermal grease. In any case, don't take these You Tube reviews at face value. I know that sometimes BTECH reads these comments, so if so, you know who I am and I will be glad to review a 50X2 if you give me one that can hold 50W for 3-4 minutes.
Now what we need to see is a spectrial display for purity. I did one on their HT and it was terrible, it would not pass FCC specs. This same test was done by the ARRL. I hope the above passes since we don't need yet another dirty radio on the market ! Barry
I think I'd rather buy a Yaesu FT2900 it has a similar output power for about the same price. I'd deal with it being a mono band, rather than deal with reliability issues with these poorly made Chinese radios.
Also note that the 50X2 is more or less the same radio as a QYT model KT-980 PLUS (Gen. 2) that is sold as a 75W radio. The reviews that I have read seem to indicate power levels about the same as the BTECH UV-50X2 It seems that the power rating of all these Chinese radios is somewhat arbitrary as they seem to vary from unit to unit and change as the finals heat up. Some also lose power over time. I am returning a TYT TH-2800 radio that out of the box only produced 35-37W on high power VHF. Pity because the radio had some nice features not found on the big 3 radios.
I'm with you! except the FT-2900 had been replaced by the FT-2980. It's the exact same radio except that the FT-2980 puts out a whopping 5 watts more than it's predecessor. I jumped off the Chinese copy cat radio band wagon a few years ago.
The Chirp website shows support for the 50X2. I just bought the 25X2 and Chirp worked fine for programming it. 73, Leo - N3AEG
WOW. 80 watts now? Yaesu is pushing the limit. I have a 2900 in my truck. I got it late last year. I didn't realize it had been discontinued already.
Depends on the model you buy. They're improving. For the money, they are a bargain. My UVB6 has been one heck of a nice little radio, for $25. Best FM radio reception I've got in the house, too... odd, but it's true. Their achillles heel... the chargers. The UVB6 is better than my UV82L was, but it still isn't perfect. The UV82L got fried by a static arc from a portable HF antenna.
3 Minutes on high for 144 or 440 MHz repeater work is extremely long and none of these FM radios were ever intended for 100% duty cycle, if they were, it would be advertised as such. Besides, most repeaters would time out on 3 minutes anyway. So why do you want an FM rig to be able to hold its output power for 3-4 minutes? What are you trying to do or prove with that test ? A more relevant performance test(s) would be to see how it works via repeaters, tones, PL's, odd splits, spurious emissions, receiver sensitivity and so on.
Do these radios have FCC Type Acceptance testing? If not they should not be allowed into the US Market.
