QYT KT-8900D Upgrade Version of KT-8900 Dual Band Mini Car Radio Mobile Transceiver VHF UHF Two Way Radio+USB Programming Cable

Great value for the price. I have received excellent audio reports on a couple repeaters I have tested on so far, on the first day with the radio. Love how you can customize all the display background and text colors. Tempature sensing fan works properly. Unfortunately, they do not send a programming cable with this radio, very annoying! It will not save offset and t-ctcs tone into memory mode when programming by hand, which is unfortunate because it is easier to program by hand than some other cheap radios, like the Baofeng keypad. I really wanted to upload all my channels via Chirp, and to make sure Chirp is actually supported before posting review, but it is what it is, and now I have to find a proper programming cable, then hope I did not pick one that does not work. Other than this very disappointing fact, this radio is well worth the money and I highly recommend if you are on a budget or just getting into the hobby. I have mainly been working HF since getting my General ticket and have made contact all over the world, so you can rest assured this review is by someone who knows what they are talking about. Grab one while you can, you will not be disappointed, except for them not including a programming cable!Edit: Have to return, squelch not working on second day. Right in the middle of a net, had to use monitor button to finish my contact. Turn monitor off and the receiver will not open squelch, which is set to 1. Can set squelch to 0 and receive but anyone who runs VHF/UHF knows that, unlike HF, an open squelch is just too noisy. Spent hours trying to fix, no joy!73, Stephen

Works great and in a very tiny package. Knobs are rubber, plastic would be better. All in all great at a great price.

I've had the BTech 2501 for many years, but its xmit section died. So I got this QYT 8900D. I tried everything to program it with Chirp and always got "Radio Identification failed". This is not a cable problem. If you get that error, you are getting to the radio. I even got that error with the OEM software. Finally I read a comment in a forum to use the latest Chirp version. I had thought Feb 2024 Chirp for a radio that's been around for a few years should work — wrong! I downloaded the Aug 2024 Chirp .whl file and installed with pipx and everything worked (see below).Now I'm very pleased with the radio. Nice 4-line display. You can have Name, channel #, or freq in any or all lines. Will stay on selected frequency but switch to another displayed channel if there is traffic, then switch back (you can turn that off if you don't want it). Very smart! Nice upgrade over ancient BTech, and under $100 US.Linux -- you may have to install WX tools first, with sudo apt-get install python-wxtools. Download latest .whl file from Chirp site. Then install Chirp with:pipx uninstall chirppipx --system-site-packages path-to-whl-fileas user, not root.Google for Windows instructions.

I took it out of the box and mocked everything up to test it and it seemed to function fine. As soon as I mounted it and turned it back on the LCD screen failed. Could possibly have happened from wiping a finger print from the screen, I'm not sure. Everything seems to work, as it powers on, and the buttons beep, and the backlight works, but it's useless without a display. Have worked with the supplier to get it rectified, which was also pretty painful (overseas company). They finally dispatched a new display for me to swap out on my own. I'll update this review if I can get things right, but for now, I can not recommend this unit.

This radio is easy to program, and works great! I use mine most every day.

So, a few things, make sure you are running 50 ohm cable and a 50 ohm tuned antenna, but also, I had to do a little digging to get it programmed. There is a download that also contains a driver, and not just the progra.ming software, that worked wonders. Up to that point, I found that if the radio was tuned to a frequency with no traffic, and put in FM radio mode, programming was much more reliable, just make sure to download from the radio first, it plays nicer that way. Having gone through that, it works great, I've hit 50 miles away just with it's 25 watts on 2 meters with a halfway ground plane antenna.

I brought 2 I like it that much. I recommended to all. But remember the program cable that comes with it, don’t even try to used it. You will be very disappointed. RT system sell one it’s blue, make program “touch and go” .

This compact little radio gets the job done easily hitting all the local repeaters, works on 2m and GMRS!