RADTEL RT470X Chinese radios test with Spectrum Analyser & Marconi Radio Tester & tear down, encrypt

[@kenandbarbie-b6c]

Thank you for the great review with credible test gear. I am very new to ham radio & have a 470x on order. I am not sure if this hobby will work out for me as I am not sure I will enjoy talking to strangers on a radio. Decades ago, I got my commercial radiotelephone license but never pursued communications as a career, but went the path of biomedical electronics. I am now retired & even if ham does not work out for me, the 470x will serve as a decent air band receiver. Maybe they will solve the transmission problems & there will be a great transceiver for the money. This transceiver is FCC approved, which brings into question how extensive a test did the certifying agency perform. I worked for the Army for 33 years & I know about ‘flawless bureaucracy” 😮.

[@baronedipiemonte3990]

I hope you given amateur radio a try. As far as talking to "strangers," if you are lucky enough to have some good operators in your area, you'll be made to feel right "at home" on the repeaters. Just find a repeater & put out your call sign. Unfortunately, where I am the amateur club "politics" is strong... and if you don't subjugate yourself to the club "officers", you'll find yourself "blacklisted" by the radio "fascists." That's why I almost didn't renew my license. I only get on the air when I'm in areas they AREN'T. BTW I'm not the only one who has experienced this behavior. I don't think it goes on in the UK. But I could be wrong. I actually have an audio recording of one of those types, purposely ignoring a distress call so he would not be interrupted... Mostly I use my radios for business & personal, with my GMRS and Part 90 licenses. Good luck to you.

[@kennethausten]

Impressed with the review. Was about to order one. This review has changed my mind.. Been licenced for 50 years now and always try and observe the regulations requirements. But that second harmonic as strong as the fundamental nearly is frightening. So it's a no go for me. Thanks for review, been enlightening.

[@baronedipiemonte3990]

I have three Radtels, two RT-730's, and one RT-490GPS. I'm currently waiting for the RT-620GPS. So far I'm very well pleased with Radtel products. The 490 makes an aggravating popping noise when you change channel. But other than that. All of mine receive and transmit 136-620mhz. I forgot about civil aviation because I can't hear much on it. The scrambler (just a basic inversion type) works fairly well.

[@bulobeloo]

Thank you for the great review with exellent test gear. I have a 470x on order. Now it will NOT be used for transmitting other than 70.cm. Baffled over the FCC approval. I have also a Tidradio H3 on order and will now check that for spurious tests.

[@Pointverse-zs4bs]

H3 is ok, one of the few, with h8

[@EI6DP]

Hello - Great video and review. I have one of those handhelds, I use it to listen to the Marine and Air Radio. Great for listening.

[@yungsmile7546]

So, accepting that it's not within FCC specs for the harmonics, I question what effective interference might take place at "a few hundred milliwatts"? I think I could bat a ball further than the signal could carry with a tuned 15" whip. The power output on my HIROYASU 8811 are 5-6 watts, the 470 9-12 watts, and the 470X and L models I sold 5-6 watts. These and other brands are identical made by MML, but the HIROYASU 8811 has newer hardware and firmware with a noticeable improvement in audio quality. Thank you for sharing your testing of the radio.

[@ryanmigliori9142]

I have 2 of these radios and honestly they can use a bit more high frequency treble. When I listen to fm radio I notice how much the high frequencies are missing.

[@jpsalo5975]

Huh, It was a comprehensive and good video radtel RT-470X. Very good for the price. Keep going..

[@yungsmile7546]

I bought the radtel 470 knowing VHF was dirty, but very clean in 1.25M/220MHz and UHF bands. There's few inexpensive radios for 220MHz and this is a fantastic performer with a tuned whip antenna that TX 5.3W 1.07:1 on 223.500 and 4.7W 1.01:1 on 462.550. I'm very pleased with this $30 radio even with it's faults. (I have TYT 8000D and Retevis RT85 HTs that are great dual band.) With VHF improvements radtel could give the big 3 Japanese a run. Time for China ketchup.

[@bigjj974]

You stated that the radio would cause issues in the transmission mode, and I understand that thank you. Question: Can you safely use the radio to monitor (just listen) the air bands and not transmit with it? We are photographers not radio operators. We need them to positions ourselves for photos only.

[@DonzLockz]

No HT radios like this that can receive airband, never can transmit airband. However, many of them can transmit on other non-ham radio bands so they could get you in trouble.

[@DanSlotea]

@@DonzLockz Product description specifies "108-136MHz (AM RX) - Air Band Receive Only". Also mentioned in the video at 8:55

[@eduardoschubert5738]

Great video. I bought one of these radios less than 6 months ago and another defect is its screen "glass", it gets scratchs and bubbles easily. And despite all the spurious signal you could realize in your tests, it has a FCC ID in its sticker :2AZSA-RT470X.

[@M3D1K]

The screen has a second screen protector on it. Just peel it off. The actual screen is fine

[@eduardoschubert5738]

@@M3D1K It worked fine, tks so much. I have already peeled off the first screen protector before, but I would never think of it having a second one.

[@M3D1K]

@@eduardoschubert5738 You’re welcome. I would have never considered a second one either but I saw it on another channel.

[@gahvno]

​@@M3D1KLet me guess... NotaRibicon?🤣

[@peterbuckby7319]

Brilliant explanation to a newby. Plus your accent is near me, Manchester 👍

[@zvjezdaniput6121]

I like this radio but is there any possibility to turn of the sound , i mean that speech is annoying me... :(

[@ExploringWithJason]

You should test out the Radtel RT470 10W , (now ships with V2 pcb), that apperently does 16W on 145mhz with power save off 😅, 4.5W-5W on 295mhz, 8W on 440mhz, also if you install the latest firmware it will unlock it between 018mhz-999mhz including TX (except airband), and also long press the number 1 key will allow the modulation switch between AM and FM on any frequencie.

[@michaelnoardo3315]

tks, i did not find this feature to change from AM to FM

[@ExploringWithJason]

@@michaelnoardo3315 if you installed the latest firmware, long press the 1 key 👍🏻

[@michaelnoardo3315]

@@ExploringWithJason check a video of mine on how cheap add HF reception to it, from 10 khz to 18mhz

[@ExploringWithJason]

@@michaelnoardo3315 thanks, will look now

[@HamTechRadioScannerDrones]

Good review the Spurious thing has been the same for 20 plus years if they provide better hardware you woudnt buy 2 as the price be alot higher.

[@steelgtr]

Any secret unlock button entries?

[@richardmendoza738]

Nope. Comes from the factory unlocked.

[@g6axf]

R very good professional video well done I wonder when connected to a multi resonant antenna ie low pass filter that some of these spurious would be attenuated

[@jasminmilak]

perfect for GMRS ;)

[@kerr64]

Thank you brother your video helped me set my radio up to working awesome thanks again 👍

[@richardmendoza738]

I like it so far, I got it as a uv5r replacement. Something unlocked and receives airband and the scrambler is pretty cool. Is it as good as an yeasu??? No, not no, but fuck no. As a beater radio, I enjoy it quite a bit.

[@rocheuro]

is it better than UV K5(8) ?

[@Handlebar-MustDash]

Yours may be the 470 as opposed to the RT-470L or RT-470X. I believe only the RT-470 has the higher 10 watts of power output.

[@mmkf72]

I get an error trying to add the radio with chirp “radio returned unknown identification string” are you able to add a fix for this as have tried researching but get nothing Cheers Murray

[@indianfalcon-si3cs]

Was this the V1 or V2 pcb version of the rt4 70x?

[@dont4450]

Can radtel radios be mars modded to use gmrs?

At about 36:00 you comment on the programmable button to function as PTT-B. Have you tried that on the software? Thanks!

[@rocheuro]

Is it better more functional than UV-K5(8) being unlocked ? looks like a good 10W radio compared to Quansheng, Would the work well together? I got UV-K5(8) and want to buy another one but I found this RT470X and now don't know which to choose! 5W vs 10W.

[@ExploringWithJason]

The rt470 10W is better, does 14W on 145mhz

[@yungsmile7546]

At 1:19:45 you say it's about two watts on 145.000, but what power level is the radio set at?

[@ct1epq]

Dummy load measures. 2.9 low 3.9 med 7.9 high on vhf

[@rfmanrfman4536]

Hello, the radio as set to do 4watts, however you will see on the spectrum analyser test we did in the video the RF power was spread across other harmonic frequencies it wasn't meant to be transmitting on, so you had 2 watts on the desired frequency, then 1 watt on the 2nd harmonic, & then remainder of the RF power on the other higher harmonics, all added up it gets to about 4 watts, but only 2 watts is really transmitted on the desired frequency on VHF, however on UHF the radio produces all power on the main frequency in use, The object of the video was to demonstrate that these cheap radios from China actually produce harmful interfering signals on frequencies elsewhere in the radio spectrum when used on VHF & yet work work perfect on UHF on TX with out issue, this is a design floor where they need to employ better harmonic filtering on tje VHF RF power amp to prevent spurious emissions. I have a pair of them myself & use them a lot they are good little radios but I mainly use them on 430MHz on 70c ham band being the radio jam that I am, I would not transmit TX on them on VHF as they are too dirty as seen in the video. They have very good receivers in terms of sensitivity All the best,

[@chrissewell1608]

Well, this is a thurough video! The good, the bad, & the ugly!

[@arielsilva6268]

Ojo, parece ser la versión antigua del 470x, o al menos el firmware lo es... comprueba la actualización en la web de Radtel y rehace las pruebas......

[@Gnap1427]

Very detailed. Thank you for this. I now know not to purchase this radio as my first ham. I was interested in it due to the aviation band. I live close to an airport with planes flying over all the time, with interest in what they are saying. Tower/Pilot. I have my interests written down on paper so I can do a search for a radio. What would you say about the Baofeng 5rm 10watt? I would really be interested in knowing.

[@WladimirCruz]

Radtel are spectacular to listen air band dear, of course do not atempe to other frequencies to transmit. yeah, chinese radios are getting top lines

[@321southtube]

Testing and verifying that a $40 radio isn't as good as a $300 radio...really? Spoiler alert...it's not. However for the money and the features...this radio cannot be beat. Now...if you're out to impress others or are a radio snob...crack open your wallet and pay $$$$$$$

[@chrissewell1608]

If it was waterproof, and had a clean transmitter, it'd be almost perfect!

[@LarryButler-kp3se]

I'm going to look pretty silly walking around with a 2 meter feedthrough cavity resonator strapped to my backpack...

[@guidelineuk4876]

I wish you turned the beep OFF LOL thanks for the video :-)

[@chipfornaris]

My unit says 10 watts and the menu only goes to 51? Firmware Says 1.20…

[@ExploringWithJason]

You have the better RT470 (not the X).

[@xrist1983]

you have made a nice video I have it too the Radtel Rt-470x with the difference that it has new firmware V2.11A and one additional menu entry (EDIT ANI NAME) (NUM.51)

[@grab1uk]

mine has v2.12A

[@mikesey1]

2.5 watts on 2 meters? Lousy, though you should have done your test mid-2 meter band, about 145.500 megarertze.

[@yungsmile7546]

All mine output 5-6+ watts😮

[@makemystronger..freemegapi6800]

Tidradio is real 10watt output.. Radtel best results is? Thanks for question