TYT TH-F5 – First Impressions
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at
6:31 am
Basic review by a relatively new Ham of the TYT TH-F5 HT Transceiver. A solid little 4 watt HT with a price point well below the big names. You’ll have to program the repeater offsets yourself, but that’s really no issue, and in no way was it a deal breaker for me, especially for . The charging cradle, rubber ducky antenna, and power cord are supplied with the TH-F5. There’s a current promotion which includes a DC/car charger, which only plugs into the charging cradle. If you’re interested in the Speaker/Microphone, the TYT part number is: TH-46 (.95 currently at Universal Radio)
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Tagged with: gadgets • HT • TH-F5 • transceiver • TYT • video review
Filed under: Transceiver Radios
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Hey,
Welcome to the Worlds Greatest Hobby!! Well some others may differ but I like it. I just became a Tech in November and a General in December. My first radio was, drumroll, you guessed the TYT TH-F5. I had a bunch of AMAZON Gift Certificate credikts and this was one of the few choices I could make. I love the Radio. Your opinions are spot on.. For the money, its a solid, dependable little 2 Meter Rig that does the Job.
@ThePauperPrepper I’m with you, I think it’s a cool hobby, and congrats on getting your General so soon after your Tech license. I took the Tech exam in Sept of ’09, then upgraded to General in March of this year, but never did much with it. Now that I’ve relocated and settled in, I’m getting back into it. I’m still impressed with this little TH-F5, and like you said, it does the job. HAM can be an expensive hobby but there are ways to do it on the cheap, without sacrificing quality.
Cool little review man. Good to know it’s field programmable. Looking at picking up a couple of these here in Aus for hitting the local CB repeaters. Don’t have my ham licence yet (and luckily don’t need it for 476 – 477), but am hoping to go for it in the new year.
Keep it real!!
@jarrydn Hey thanks! I think you’ll really like that little radio, especially for the money. Good luck with the Ham license in 2011… set a date and go for it. That’s what I’m trying to do with Morse Code, but starting to realize it’s gonna take a while.
Hi. My call sign is KB1VHS. I bought the model that is one step above this one (the dual band one) and could not get anyone talking on it on any frequency. I tried the local repeaters in the area. I am not sure I am setting up the repeaters correctly. How do you set them up?
@MegaLivefreeordie Hey KB1VHS… I have to admit, this radio probably isn’t the easiest to program, mainly because you have to type in the offset TX freq. yourself. Seems that most other radios are smart enough to do that for you. So, I guess the first question I’d ask is if you checked to be sure you entered the correct offset freq’s?
When I programmed mine I used the optional software and installed it on a little netbook computer.
Hey Hey neighbor! John KD8DVR here! I mostly am on the 147.24 repeater. I use the Wouxun KG-UVD1p dual banders. YAY you mentioned the k8dre repeater (where I live)
Good video… seeya on the air 73
Hey John, thank you for the nice comment! I’ll be listening for you on 147.24 and will be sure to say ‘”Hi!”
Hello .. I am Greek and I have this model (I am using google translate) .. I want to ask you something! the 1 key is a word that is called SQL .. what is that;
and how I make my model to catch almost all frequencies;
@EverydayYeti Yeah.. one of the best reviews I have ever seen on youtube. I am very DTMF intensive,being a control op on 147.240, as well as my echolink node… and that radio does not have DTMF… BUT for ALL other uses that looks like a sweet deal. I actually may buy one though. keep in touch 73 kd8dvr@gmail.com
Gotta love Universal Radio. Great video, I picked one of these for a buddy and fellow HAM who doesn’t have a shop near him.
@rst93 You sure are right about that… I could easily spend a lot of money that I don’t have in that place!
So how about how many miles can you transmit in an urban environment? I live ontop of a hill about 5 miles away from the city and am hoping it will transmit to the city, my handheld cb radio and 17 mile Cobra two way radios cannot transmit that far so I really hope this can transmit beyond them. I heard you say it can pick up the repeater ~20 miles away but picking it up and being able to transmit to the repeater are two different things.
@jernito You’re right, I didn’t really say the right thing in the video. In regards to the repeater on the other side of town, about 20 miles away, I am able to transmit to, as well as receive. That is with the little antenna that comes with the radio, though I usually use a very basic j-pole antenna about 15 feet up in pine tree just outside my window. If you’re on a hill, I have no doubts that you’ll be successful transmitting to the city.
hi to all looking for some HELP i have TYT TH-F5 UHF i am looking for dirver for the USB.
i am runing windows 7 . or if some one no site i can get driver from
thank you
@steven74213 Hey Steven, I see what you mean. I was using XP but have since moved on to a Mac. I tried using the software on my son’s Windows7 laptop and you’re right, no luck. I even tried installing other company’s usb/serial drivers but to no avail. I emailed TYT a little while ago, hopefully they’ll write back. I’ll keep trying too and hopefully we’ll come up with a solution. -Alex