It finally came! Shoutout to one of my X mutuals. I don’t think he wants to be named, thank you ser! I’m very excited because I’ve wanted to try one of these mini mobile radios for quite some time. These offer some pretty decent power in a very compact package at a very reasonable price. There are several versions of this radio. The original KT8900 dual band, the KT8900r tri band and this KT8900d being the newest version I believe. The 8900d model appears quite a bit different from the outside than the older models. It has a much bigger display. It is sometimes called a quad band but that’s a bit of a misnomer. Technically this is a dual band quad watch radio, VHF/UHF. Ok so let’s get into it.
This radio comes packaged nice. Basically like any other cheap Chinese radio but I must say they do a nice presentation imo. The radio has a quality feel right out of the box to me. When you turn it in it almost sounds like an 80’s video game, like Galaga! The speaker is Loud, indeed a fantastic speaker in this little unit. So the look and feel did have me hyped right off the bat. I already had the stuff to hook this radio up immediately. It comes with a pigtail on the radio with a clear plastic connector. This has a DC power ‘cig lighter’ plug that connects to it, so you can keep this radio portable and plug it into any vehicle. The clear plastic end matches some other wires I had that were already adapted to Anderson connectors so I just plugged this into my power supply and hooked up my antenna. I was on the air in minutes getting acquainted with this little radio.
I had read/heard these little radios are basically the same as operating a Baofeng. Indeed I have heard they are basically a Baofeng with an amp so they’re putting out around 20w. I can confirm this operates very similar to a Baofeng. If you’re familiar with operating the Baofeng then this will become a fairly easy and natural radio to operate. Indeed with the quad watch I believe one can think of this as a ‘super Baofeng’. It’s basically like two Baofengs in one with 2-4 times the power. This to me gives it quite a bit of versatility. If you’re doing net control, or you are transmitting and receiving on different frequencies or bands with different groups, there’s a lot of versatility. I’m happy to report this little radio, at least my particular example, it’s fully opened up. It’ll Rx and Tx on FRS/GMRS and MURS frequencies I believe. Now, it’s not illegal but it IS, or unlawful? to use this radio to transmit on these frequencies, because it is not approved. I’m no sad ham. I’m not telling you what to do nor do I care. Not legal advice! I personally WANT opened up radios. It’s something I like very much about my 50w TYT Quad Band. Otoh my 2m Kenwood only does ham bands. Which is whatever for me but one could get in trouble if you didn’t have your ham ticket.
I suppose the Baofeng heritage is both the good and the bad of this radio. It’s what makes it affordable, and familiar to use. You do however indeed get some of the same drawbacks as the baofeng. I am saying this in comparison with a few other mobiles I’ve tried from Kenwood and TYT. This radio of course really isn’t comparable to these other radios, that must be kept in mind. The TYT TH9800+ is functionally closest to this radio. It really does quite a bit more, and it has twice the power. It’s also twice as big and nearly three times as expensive. So not really designed for the same market. The other TYT, the TH8000 and the Kenwood TM281a are both mono band radios. They are both bigger, more powerful and significantly more expensive. The QYT scans slow compared to any of these radios, and doesn’t seem to transmit as far. Of course it’s got half the power. Like I said I’m really not trying to compare a Corolla to a Lexus here, it’s absolutely no knock against the QYT, just like it’s no knock against the Corolla that it dosen’t have the Lexus performance. It’s not supposed to! I like Baofengs anyway, I’m no sad ham! They have worked pretty well for me actually.
So I’m overall quite impressed with this little radio. I have big plans to test it out! So far I’ve just made a quick uhf contact with a Baofeng, and I’ve scanned and received a little bit. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of testing this one. I do have plans for this one! Initially I had thought of turning it into a backpack radio, however I don’t think that’s going to work out. It WILL work but it’s not going to work as an ‘on the fly’ unit. I’ve had to reimagine the design I envisioned a little bit. It’s going to be more like other designs I’ve seen, which of course I now see why they built their portable systems the way they did. I believe that before I endeavor to build the portable rig I’m going to get a mag mount antenna and put it in the van, or any of our vehicles I choose actually. I have a CB magmount, I believe I’m going to put both this radio and a mini mobile CB I’m looking at in my van. I plan to explore the modularity and portability of this little radio to its fullest potential. Initial impressions are great, I’m having fun, stay tuned…
Midwest Pistol Combat Systems 