Wouxun KG-UV8H Dual Band Amateur Radio (8 watts / 2m/70cm / 3200 mAh battery)

Buy two way radios is a great company with top notch customer support and they sell amazing products. I will be back to buy more!

Nothing to add to other reviews except the included antenna is mediocre (at least mine was).

GREAT EXCELLENT WOUXUN HT I HAVE NOTHING BAD TO SAY JUST A GREAT ALL AROUND 2 METER 440 HT I USE IT ALL THE TIME FOR MY AMATEUR RADIO COMMUNICATION'S NEEDS !!!! GET ONE YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED !!! THANK BUY TWO WAY RADIO'S !!!!

Solid build - Good ergonomics - Display backgrounds are assets for varied light conditions - TX and RX very good for my applications - Easily programmed with CHIRP if you know how to use the program effectively - Battery life very good.

Excellent reception and good quality not the best but you will be happy with it.

I held off a long time buying this radio, looking at the New Icom T-10 offering. Being involved in Emergency services, the capacity for AA batteries was lacking on the Icom, along with the little flashlight (surprising how handy they are for my older eyes). The KGUV8H has it all, is much more solidly built than my previous Wouxuns, and the size fits nicely in the hand. I found the 6/7 D models a bit bulky and easily droppable with a thin plastic case. Now with CHIRP programming under development and coming out hopefully soon, I am buying nothing else but a couple more KGUV8H's New 3200mah battery capacity and higher power is nice too.

great audio on transmit and recieve. Very solid radio with a good size battery. Great customer service, thank you Anthony,

Love the color screen and I love the feel of the radio in my hand. Works really well. The software does leave something to be desired and I wish it worked with Chirp.

This is my 4th HT purchase (the others being and in order, UV-5$, KG-905, UV-9G). I love em all and now have matching sets (somewhat) for me and the Mrs.

At this point, Im not sure I'll move away from Wouxon (Ocean) devices.

Good pricing and a good radio

If you want a inexpensive vhf/uhf radio that's got a lot of features, this is a good choice. The programming is difficult but not impossible. This is my second radio from Wouxum. They are almost bullet proof.

The radio works well, but the menu system says this radio is low end. And I think the receiver is DC. I would consider the yaseu ft-60 for the same price.

I agree with "Al"s review from 6/29. I've owned this radio for over a year.

Best performing analog Chinese radio and original antenna I've ever used in general. Great looking screen...provided you're not in direct sunlight.

Surprisingly, pretty good for full duplex/sat work if you have pass filters on your antenna(s). There is a little desense but a quick press of the monitor button and you're back in business. Low step tuning for Doppler adjustments.

Pretty sure the UV-8H can double as a back up self defense weapon. This thing is beefy, reminds me of a commercial/municipal radio.

STILL, no chirp support! If y'all can gift or loan YouTubers these radios then why can't a vendor or mfgr send one to a developer at Chirp? I travel all over North America frequently and don't want to spend fifteen minutes before every trip trying to use cumbersome mfgr software or hand programming by jumping through hoops with the not-so-well thought out menus. That's the only reason I can't give this five stars. I wanted it to be my EDC HT but will live in a drawer until Chirp supports it...if they ever do. Outlook is pretty bleak on the UV-8H discussion page at the Chirp site though. My fault, I should've done my research before I bought it or waited until it was supported.

Fix the screen/sunlight issue, work on the menus, and have Chirp support and this would be a great all around analog HT.

Highly recommend BuyTwoWayRadios, their ordering process and shipping were on point.

Radio packed well. Assembles easily and feels solid in the hand.
Examining radio, appears to be of quality materials and workmanship.
Radio menu is typical Chinese, no organization whatsoever.
One sub menu would have been nice, grouping repeater choices in one place.
Instruction book is worse, often puzzling to read.

Again, the radio is well built and solid, but the viewing screen is not outdoor friendly. Daylight obliterates screen information.
Downloading programming software and drivers is an exercise in frustration.

Overall: A quality HT. Very good power and audio. Knobs are wriggle free having a nice crisp, accurate feel, same with the push buttons.
Charger works well as expected.

This radio deserves a much better, organized menu and instruction booklet. A mini CD with driver and programming software should have been included with this quality radio.

The dealer: Buy Two Way Radios.com is an excellent store with very good prices and excellent, friendly customer service.
Expect and receive knowledgeable online or phone help.

Very sensitive front end that pulls in distant and weak signals well. But comes with the drawback of overload with strong, nearby simplex signals.
Has false positives in channel scanning. The signal meter bar graph goes full scale, halting the scan for a bit. If monitor (opening the squelch) is used, there is no signal there.
The manual leaves much to be desired. The illustration of the LCD screen in page 5 needs redone/updated. I have no idea what a flashing telephone handset icon on the screen means.
The programming software is horrid. You can only cut and paste one line at a time. I wanted to insert 3 new channels two lines down from the top. I have 124 channels programmed, so have to cut, then paste each line three rows down, one at a time, 122 times!
But the radio itself works very well and the reports of my signal are always good. The antenna works well and I am not sure I even want to try another antenna.
Overall, I am satisfied with my purchase. It had went out of stock just prior to my budget jelling, but I ordered it prepay, anyway. They received another batch in under two weeks and got it to me in like three days, opposite side of the country.
This is my second purchase from BTWR, I am sure it is not the last.

Solid little HT. Programing was very simple. I am at a higher elevation and able to hit multiple reapters over 30 miles away. Getting good reports on the audio.

Radio is easy to use, lot of features, quality built - enjoyable radio to use - was able to program channels manually easily, and fairly quickly (did order programming cable later) - quality of speaker and transmissions are really good - great description of features on website to help make decision for this radio - and radio arrived as described - definitely recommend.

I am very impressed by the construction quality and love the "dark mode" background feature. Programming is no more complicated than any other HT. I just picked up another Wouxun HT (KG-UV9D Mate) after liking the KG-UV8H so much.

I only wish that the software was updated for this radio

I had just purchased the 935G for my GMRS collection, and that turned out to be an excellent radio. Knowing the UV8H was pretty much the same but a HAM version, I purchased it as well. I'm very pleased and just as impressed with it. Great price for a great radio. Has a lot of features and is solidly built. Also, having 8w gives me just a bit more power to hit some repeaters that I couldn't before.

Already have some other Woxun GMRS sets, and not an hour after my 935G arrived, I knew I wanted this HT for amateur bands, so I added the 8H to the collection.

Feels solid, and as a hiker I'm a big fan of the IP67 rating. I don't have an 8D, but it looks like the big improvements over that model are the waterproof case, a power bump up to 8W, a switch to a male SMA connector, and a horizontal screen.

Can't really say if the screen itself is a technological upgrade or they just rotated it, but firmware allowing reverse-type (white on black) massively improves readability. As usual the font could use work, but the information layout is very clean and logical. You can even put your call sign in a banner at the top. I do wish it had a 'standby brightness' setting like what was added for the 935G.

Buttons and knobs feel firm and solid but still easy to press, and I don't doubt they'll stand up to water ingress. Also shares a battery interface and charging cradle with the 935, 905, and UVN1 (BLO-011 and BLO-016).

I'm using this with a NA-24J (though the stock is pretty good) antenna and the 8W can hit some really distant stations, but certainly burns through battery. Nice to have for extreme situations, but otherwise best to leave on medium power. Haven't tried the cross-band repeater function yet, but also a 'nice to have' feature.

Very few drawbacks here. One is the limited options for the programmable keys; despite the user manual description, one is locked to monitor/flashlight, and the other gives very few options. The 935G fixed this to some degree. Additionally, it would have been nice to be able to scan on the secondary channel rather than only on the main, but this is just a minor irritation.

Set all my local repeater settings. Saved to memory. Gave it a name. Was on the air in a few minutes 10 miles distance 59 reported.

Set local fire station and am doing dual watch.

Heard satellite at 80 degrees above me.

Can't use it at my desk because it shuts off my wireless keyboard on 70 centimeters and trips out my monitor on 2m.

I Have the Wouxun UV9D Mate and this one, the UV8H. Both are amazing! But I found the UV8H was much easier to read the screen in daylight. I dont really need or use the extra scanning freqs on the UV9D Mate, so I find myself carrying this one all the time. Simply said, the UV8H is an AMAZING HT!! Fast shipping as well!!

I think this is a great first radio. I'm a little biased since this is my first amateur HT radio. However, this radio feels well made and already withstood a couple excursions into inclement weather since owning it. The stock antenna is amazingly sensitive beating out a Nagoya 701 when I compared them using the Wouxun KG-905G radios. I do typically keep a Nagoya 771 antenna on this radio but I think the stock on is actually really good. I wish the manual was written in better English or if BTWR would publish their own "better" version. Nobody really talks about it but this radio has two different built-in repeater modes and you can listen and transmit at the same time. During weekly nets I am told my RST is 59. I also wish the "8H Series" software was better. The copy paste hotkey being wrong is really annoying. Bottom line, this radio is well built and has a good stable RF output based on RST reports. I think this radio has lot of potential for beginners.

This is the first quality hand held that I purchased. I am happy with what I received for the price that I paid. Great radio and would purchase again

Pleasure to Use and Program! Even without software, just faster with it.

I paired this radio with a Nagoya NA-24J 2m/70cm Dual Band Antenna (SMA Female). I picked this as a Ham radio and wanted to monitor GMRS on a Part 95 legal radio. A plus for me is it use same battery as the KG-905G (GMRS radio). I'm still learning a lot about the programing features, it is easy to program via software for channel line up with your PC.

A little difficult to learn all the features. Seems to be very effective once you get it done correctly.

It's a nice radio for the price and I would recommend it to anyone. The sound quality is good and it's easy to program with the radio key pad. The programming software is also simple to program your favorite feqencies in the software and then install to the radio. The only issue I see is the antenna, it could be better but is does a ok job hitting the repeaters. Would I buy it again? Yes.

Not the best, not the worst. Average at best.

The KG - UV8h dual band ht is as advertised. I love the wider color screen and the different themes available. The radio works better than I had expected it to. The 3200MAH battery gives the radio a heavy solid feel. I bought the usb cable to be able to charge my radio that way but the connector is not the same and does not fit into the back of the charging cradle. I addressed this with the company and Anthony was very helpful. I have an iMac Apple computer and so the programing cable does not work with the software provided by the company or with chirp at this time. I'm sure programming ability through chirp at least will be available eventually for this new radio. I am brand new to 2m/70cm radio. This is my first purchase of an HT. So I am pleased to say that even a newbie such as myself, while following the available instructions, should be able to program the radio manually. I have had no problems with programing the basics. Frequency, Memory Channels, Shift, CTCSS Tones, Squelch etc. I have had no problems operating the radio and from a new person's perspective, can recommend the UV8H without question. It feels solid and well made, and the company has been great with any questions.

This is a quality radio at a great price.