BAOFENG BF-888S Two Way Radio (Pack of 20)

I've bought the 20-pack twice now. They are fantastic little units that I rely on all the time. But you do need to understand their limitations.... These are 2W radios so they won't transmit through walls very well, (in convention centers you might get through one wall, but not much more than that...) They work best line-of-sight).They are inexpensive so the sound quality isn't perfect, but for communicating across a simple event site, from the house to the beach, or even across a section of a ski mountain, they work great. And at this price point you don't care if your kids lose one. There are lots of available (inexpensive) accessories, too. Baofeng uses the "Kenwood" or "K-1" pin configuration for the cable and accessories.Build quality is OK. (great for the price point) Of my 40 radios, one unit, and one battery, didn't work when unpackaged, but at $10 who cares? The other 39 units all work very well. I didn't write to ask for a replacement, so I can't comment on customer service.BUY THE DATA CABLE and REPROGRAM the radios. This is especially important since lots of users don't re-program, so the preset channels are over-used. Reprogramming will take you to "quiet" channels.BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PROGRAM TO. You need to avoid frequencies used by agencies like the police, rescue teams, aircraft, etc. THATS WHY YOU SHOULD BE HAM LICENSEDThe preset channels are in frequency bands that require HAM licensing! That's another reason to re-program the radio. If you re-program the radio to the "public" FRS channels then you avoid interfering on "important" frequencies and are unlikely to "get in trouble."It's easy to reprogram these or any of the "Baofeng" radios... With the cable and the free online program CHIRP you can create a channel profile for your use, then download it to each of your radios. The program works like an excel spreadsheet, It can both upload radio channel-sets from radios (you can save them as files, like radio-presets in your car!) and then download them to other radios to create clones that can all talk to each other.Helpful "Links" (I can't actually post URLS here, sorry)GET informed and get certified at the "National Assoc for Amateur Radio" websiteLearn about FRS by online research with "Wiki" or other informational search enginesGet CHIRP by simply researching that name; you'll see the author "DanPlanet."

I have been using these radios for a couple years now. At the price point I accept that they are not going to last forever. This last order of 20 are the lowest quality I have seen so far. They are lighter in weight, I assume because of less metal used in production. The first thing I noticed was the clips that came with the radios are entirely made of plastic. It isn't so much as a clip as a piece of plastic you bend to clip on. The older radios have a metal plate that has a spring that pivots like an actual clip, more durable. The place the clips attach is also different. On the new radios it is a plastic cover that falls off when you pull the screws out there are some threaded metal parts inside that the screws attach to. In the old design the metal plate/screws attach to metal lugs in the radio back. I feel this is a bit more secure. I am tempted to open up one of the newer radios and compare to one of the older ones and see what else is different. If it wasn't for the fact these are inexpensive radios I would almost say they are knock offs. I definitely don't expect this batch to last long.

I work at a scrap metal recycling yard and we are hard on literally everything. One by one the set if radios we were using got lost, broken, or died so we looked into replacing them. With the cost to replace those Nokia's they only wanted to get 2 or 3 and that wasn't enough. So I hopped on Amazon and got to searching. When I found these I was skeptical at first due to the price. We could buy 15 Baofeng radios for the price of replacing one Nokia. The powers that be insisted we weren't wasting our time and money on $12 radio's. A few more days went by and I decided I gotta have some radios and $225 bucks wasn't too much for me to gamble my own money on. Sure enough the radios showed up we handed them out and they work just as good as the radios that cost 15x more. The other plus to this was at $12 a radio we could actually make each employee responsible for his or her radio. If they lose it or break it we got to have $12 before you get another one. The 10th radio we went to use does have a defective battery. After allowing it to fully charge it only operates for 1 to 2 hours before it's asking to be charged again. I'm currently reaching out to Baofeng to see if they can send me a new battery and I send this one back. I will update when the dust settles. So if you ask me would you recommend these radio's? Without a doubt. My employer was so happy with our success at a fraction of the cost they are ordering Baofengs for any of the other 13 locations that need radios. Also they did end up paying me back but they waited a month to make sure the radios lasted!

We have had these radios for less than a month (ordered the 20 pack). So far there doesn't seem to be any issues with the radios with light usage (approximately two days per week for about 10 hrs/week).On the other hand, these earpieces are extremely disappointing-the volume drops after one day of use. Initially, I thought I had only one defective earpiece, but as each person used their earpiece-it worked one day and then the sound would drop so low that the radio would have to be turned up to max volume just to barely hear someone speaking, which of course renders the earpiece useless.I swapped the earpiece from my old Kenwood radio and was able to hear without incident-so now I'll have to see what can do about getting replacement earpieces now.Frankly, I would rather not have received an apparently defective accessory in the first place.UPDATE=======I emailed the seller (in my case, Pavilion Electronics) explaining the problem and inquired about "replacement earpieces". I received the following prompt reply:Thanks for bringing this to our attention"Please return your item with everything that came in package in its original packaging using the return shipping label I have attached for you...Once we receive the entire order back back we will ship a brand new replacement"

Compré estos radios y hasta la fecha me han fallado 3 que se prenden y apagan solos parexe como un falso contacto de la batería, tiempo muy corto ya que anteriormente me había durado dos años antes que empezarán con fallas de este tipo

Gracias entrega a tiempo, buen equipo, bateria soporta trabajo continuo de mas de 12 hrs, claridad y calidad perfecta, accesorios completos, manual de uso claro.

Fácil de utilizar, esperemos el comportamiento sea bueno con el paso del tiempo

Excelente vendedor, excelente producto, desde Ontario hasta CDMX en sólo una semana es bastante rápido, el producto muy bueno, cumple con las especificaciones y las funciones, me hubiera gustado que los manos libres fueran de tubo acústico pero no se puede todo.. en fin, muy satisfecho 100 % recomendable 👍👏

Excelentes radios, trabaje con ellos en la Nueva Arena CD.MX. de 6:00 am a 6:00 pm por 3 días y funcionaron perfecto, los enlace con los radios Baofeng UV5RA, recomendadisimos