About to purchase my first GMRS radio.
Narrowed it down to 2 units.
Can you advise on Bteck Pro Ip67 vs KG-935G from Wouxun?
Two things really. One has GPS, one doesn’t, and one has a proper desktop charger, the other relying on you having a usb outlet to charge. This means there is a socket somewhere that has a cover, and when the cover breaks off, or gets knocked out, the radio leaks. I do lots of marine radios that get wet frequently. Longest life radios in my hire stock are ALL desk charger radios. The junk box of failed radios usually have water caused faults, and not all, but many, have lost the bung.
GPS could be useful. It usually eats into battery life, but not too much.
It gives you position in lat/lon so you need to have a map that also has it. Marine radios have things called plotters that overlay your position onto a map, like car satnavs, radios don’t, so my view is you’re probably better to have a portable Garmin or similar.
Thank you sir.
Youve raised some pros and cons i hadnt heard yet. I was on the fence and could have gone either way. I appreciate your time and thoughts.
SWAT
The reality is that makes nowadays are largely unimportant, but the feature set needs to match the end user’s needs. I make many decisions based on if I have to use a finger nail or the tip of a finger to press buttons properly. I prefer finger tips, and hate nails? SIlly, but that has killed many nice radios of me over the years.
You will be much happier with the Wouxun. It is better quality and doesn’t rely on your phone for all programming and scanning settings. It is also Chirp-programmable. (Pick up a genuine FTDI programming cable; NOT the cheaper counterfeit Prolific chip. You will thank us later.)
The manual is much better written, and the Wouxun uses the pretty standard Kenwood two-pin K1 connector for headsets and speaker mics.
While the BTech seems to have many features, they are often buggy and rely on your phone to use.
Another good feature of the Wouxun is that our forum hosts at buytwowayradios sell this unit, and they are professional radio dealers, not some warehouse somewhere.
Is there any downside to the Wouxun? Of course. EVERYTHING in two-way radios is a compromise of some kind. The Wouxun is IP66 rated, meaning reasonably water resistant, including dust, rain and jets of water, while the BTech is IP67 rated for momentary submersion in water.
The Wouxun is just a better radio, with higher quaility and without a bunch of less-than-useful features like GPS, Bluetooth and texting that only work occasionally, if at all.
Also with the KG-935G you can get a battery with a usb-c port if that is important to you. The KG-935G Plus comes with that battery and several other upgrades. The Wouxun is a very good radio.
Excellent information and thank you very for the time you took to respond.
Hope to make my purchase this week and start the process for getting my license.
I think these are features that are going to be must haves for the younger generation interested in radios.
Just received my btech ptt button that will be utilized on snowmobile/dirt bike handlebars pair with Bluetooth headsets, works great so far.
Maps location also very convenient for snowmobiling/hunting/backpacking in groups, while a lot of people find it annoying that you have use a phone for text/detailed maps, generationally I don’t see this as being a big inconvenience for those who already use their phones for everything.
The biggest critique that I think is valid is that these features are useless without others in your group with btech text capable radios, but I’m confident this will become a more standard feature in newer models as well as gain traction with younger user base as time goes on. I’m working on getting several of my friends to pick one up as well. Started with 2 GMRS pro’s for now to use the smart features.
Recent improvement is the App and newly added private chat channel groups that can be used by anyone on the app with wifi.
I think the GPS feature is almost a must have if you are off grid and riding or hiking for emergency situations.