We’ve owned several GMRS handheld radios but our favorite is probably the Baofeng UV-9G. It’s not as easy to charge as some handhelds, since it requires placing it in a charging base, but because it’s fairly durable and IP67 water resistant* it’s the handheld that usually ends up in the truck or Jeep for an outing. We recently bought a second radio for travel and here’s what came in the box:
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Unboxing and Setup of the Baofeng UV-9G
The UV-9G came with a belt clip, programming cable, hands-free earpiece, charging base station and manual. We noticed that the UV-9G’s charging station was different from our Btech GMRS-V2 and not cross-compatible which is too bad. The antenna was about 1″ longer than the one on our Btech V2 and we noticed an orange water-resistant seal on the back where the battery pack fits, something the Btech V2 doesn’t have.
We bought our second UV-9G to replace a Btech GMRS-V2 that has water damage. You can see our review of that radio here.
As for ease of setup, the manual for the UV-9G is fairly easy to understand, but with fine print not so easy on older eyes, so we referenced the online manual for the UV-9G on Baofeng’s website.
The “Baofeng” voice prompt and a beep greeted us upon powering it on, which we promptly disabled. We pressed “Enter” then used the channel down key to locate “Voice” then hit “Enter’ again, then toggled the channel down key to choose “Off”, then hit “Menu” again to save the change. We used this same procedure to change other values such as “Roger beep” “key Beep”, etc. (Menu- Channel Down to find an item, then pressing Menu again to select, Channel Down key to toggle and pressing Menu to save our selection.
Programming The Baofeng UV-9G With Chirp
Next, we connected the programming (Chirp) cable to the radio by using a small flat-head screwdriver to remove the auxiliary microphone port cover on the right side of the radio. You can find the latest updated version of the Chirp program here.
Once we had programmed the correct tones for our local GMRS repeaters, we went outside for a quick range test. We had no problems talking to another GMRS user through a repeater 12.5 miles away. Next we tried to contact a friend across town (7 miles) standing outside using their 5 watt handheld. At first we got no response, then tried moving to a higher spot and got a 5×3 (good readability, fair signal) report. Just for fun, we hooked it up to a 7 element Yagi with 9 db gain, and could “kerchunk” a repeater 35 miles away.
Having found programming mistakes before on imported radios, we checked that all the frequencies downloaded from the radio in Chirp were correct and had the appropriate wideband/narrowband setup, using this list of GMRS Frequencies.
Pros and Cons of the Baofeng UV-9G
Pros
- The UV-9G is advertised as being IP67 waterproof, meaning it can be submerged for up to one meter for up to 30 minutes.*
- Rugged feeling design, sealed exterior ports.
- Easy to program and set up.
- Easy to add custom simplex or repeater channels under DIY bank.
Cons
- A little tighter fit in the pocket, 1/2″ wider and 1/3 heavier than Btech V2 and Baofeng GMRS-15 Pro.
- No USB-C charging port or other plug-in charger jack, must be charged in base.
- Side mic/headphone jack requires screwdriver, not as convenient as plug-in jack when using headset.
Would We Buy It Again?
If anything ever happened to the two UV-9G’s that we own, we’d probably buy them again. For an IP67 waterproof radio* that costs less than $50 each, they’re hard to beat. We found out the hard way (see our last review of the Btech-V2, that even heavy rain can ruin a handheld with less than IP67 waterproofing.
Charging these handhelds when on an overland or camping trip isn’t as easy as ones with a USB-C charging port, but we found a USB charging base online for about $10 that works great for travel.
To Sum it Up – The Baofeng UV-9G is a powerful, tough little radio that’s also budget friendly. There are other well made GMRS handhelds, but we like Baofeng/BTECH because you can add an external antenna using a SMA Female to UHF SO239 adapter, and they’re easy to program with Chirp.
A Note About The Baofeng UV-9G Power Output in Watts
We have heard reports of power output being inconsistent with this radio. The helpful video below shows the effect of using a better antenna (Nagoya) on the radio and how it affects power output. With less power reflected back into the radio, this test showed 5.2 watts output using the Nagoya, vs. the stock antenna.
Why Change the Stock Antenna? – Often Baofeng radios come with the same generic stock antenna made for ham bands, not specifically for GMRS frequencies. The UV-9G’s stock antenna had an SWR reading of 1.5 (not bad) but the Nagoya antenna we replaced it with is reading 1.1 (perfect matching).
- 💦[Extend DIY CH] UV-9G has set 31-54 CH as DIY repeater channels except for...
- 💦[GMRS Version] New upgraded version of UV-9R / GT-3WP. UV-9G has 30 GMRS...
- 💦[IP67 Waterproof] Compared to older models, the UV-9G has better water and...
- 💦[Long Range for Adults] No GMRS repeater is required and the range can be up...
- 💦[Programming Cable Included] UV-9G comes with a BAOFENG original programming...
Ours is holding steady at 4.5 watts and the receiver seems to do a good job with weak signals, however you’ll notice much better results on both RX and TX when the antenna is upgraded to a 5.5″ Nagoya NA-701G that’s made for GMRS frequencies.
*Like output power, waterproofing specs for these handhelds are sometimes a bit exaggerated, so it’s best to treat these radios as “water-resistant” rather than “waterproof”.
