TYTTH-9800 Quad Band 50W Cross-Band Mobile Car Ham Radio Black 5.5 x 1.58 x 8.35"

A few years ago 2 friends of mine each bought a Yaesu FT 8900. I had the opportunity to observe and also use the radio. I thought it was nice, but certainly priced too high to be worth the investment for me. Up until recently I had only ever used and needed a single band 2 meter or dual band VHF/UHF rig in the vehicle and that met my needs. 4 bands? Who really uses or needs 4 bands? I Thought to myself.In recent years I've been both more active on the ham radio and doing more on the road. Often times there were UHF repeaters that would lend themselves better to a particular situation but I only had 2 meters available. Or sometimes If I had dual band it was just a 5 watt HT hooked to a mobile antenna. It performed well but I needed more power and less clutter than having speakers, microphones, power cables and coax strung all over the car.It had been since I got my ticket in 2001 I last purchased a brand new mobile radio. Yes, I was definitely due for new mobile rig. I figured it may as well be the best mobile I can afford. But $400+ for a Yaesu quad bander? Still no way I could justify it. With lots of chatter amongst the locals about the new budget priced Chinese rigs I began to pay attention. A year before the TYT-TH9800 was even produced I found out it was in the design stages. I made a point to follow the progress and buy one if it turned out to be worthwhile.So was it worthwhile? Well, turns out my job is now sending me on road trips as much as 300 miles or more a day. Remote wilderness areas of upstate PA. No cell service dead zones. The HT had to go and I replaced it with the TH9800. Now I wonder how I ever got by on anything less. Paired with a tri-band Radio Shack "scanner" antenna this rig has been pure mobile operating bliss. Its powerful, reliable, and easy to operate.The hyper memories (A-F keys) are especially useful. As I travel to different regions of the state I can set and later recall a preset configuration for the radio to match the repeaters I use in that region. No need to scroll through hundreds of memories.I find myself using the dual receive all the time. As I'm beginning to fade on one repeater I can scan or look for another on the other side of the rig with a smooth as silk transition. I especially like that this radio, unlike the Yaesu version allows reception of CB. So I can have CB channel 19 on the left and 2 meters on the right. I squelch ch19 for only the important stuff and carry on my repeater rag chew as I put the interstate miles behind me.Audio reports have been fabulous, with quite a few saying "Where can I get one" in response to hearing the offerings of this radio. All 800 memories of this radio are full, thanks to ordering the USB Programming cable. Yes, it CAN be done in CHIRP, contrary to most of what you read on the web. CHIRP cannot upload and download to the radio yet but that's no big deal. You simply use the TYT software to capture a .dat file and open that in CHIRP. Then you can use all the neat options in CHIRP to download your frequencies and import them into the .dat file. Use the TYT to upload the .dat. Done! I have every 10/6/2/70 repeater in the state loaded into the radio with plenty of extra room. Outside of having a mobile all band/all mode I dont think it gets any better than this radio. Especially for this price!!*My version is the "Plus Upgraded" version. This version, according to the TYT representative that wrote me back,(great customer service) fixes several bugs in the firmware and makes the crossband repeat feature work better.

Of my several mobile radios this has become such a favor that two of my buddies bought them in quick succession to me. Highly recommend N9X—

Let me first cover what i like about this radio. It is compact, 4 band radio with hidden extras. More on the extras later. It came with programming cable, detachable faceplate with a generously long control cable, mounting hardware and brackets, microphone, instruction manual and power cable with fuses. Nice! I had to go to the website to access the programming software, but the Chirp software works as well. Awesome! Now for the bonus. You can unlock the radio to tranmit and recieve out of the 4 ham bands listed! It can only be unlocked from the TYT 9800 programming software. Very easy to accomplish with help of you tube video! It now will allow you to transmit and recieve on CB frequencies and GMRS frequencies! Fantastic! I was able to program in a local gmrs repeater and makes contacts. Excellant! The programming software was very easy to use and very simular to the Chirp software. The screen is clear and crisp and controls are really simular to the Yaesu FT-8900r which im sure the design was modeled after. Nice! The speaker sounds nice and crisp. Now for the bad. The power output isnt even close to what is advertised. I got about 22 watts out on 10 meters, 30 watts on 6 meters, 35 watts on 2 meters and about 30-35 watts on 70 centimeters. I got about 30 watts on GMRS and didnt test on CB frequencies but would assume simular to 10 meter power out. Bummer! It was easy enough to mount but durability is unknown. The hand mic is OK but not really user intuitive for channel and frequency selection or hand programming the memory channels. I would have given the radio only 3 stars for low power but the unlocked frequencies was a bonus. I will update as I get more use with this radio.

Don't do it! Don't buy it! I think you will be sorry.Save your money and get one of the "big three" ham radio companies reliable radios.I ordered this radio in early July, on a lark. It has been replaced several times because they don't work out of the box. This is really typical of cheap Chinese junk! I still don't have a working one, the replacement in "in the mail" again!Of course the wait (turn around time) send the bad one back wait until they receive it then ship you a new one, is about 9 to 10 days each time.The first one: The on/off switch wouldn't work. Who'd think you want to turn the radio on and off.ZERO quality control on this one, if it won't even turn on and off? I didn't even bother to check any other features at that point. So a replacement control head was sent, after I returned the supposed defective control head 11 days later I received another control head, no luck same issue wouldn't turn off or on.The radio was replaced after I returned the entire radio this time for a new one after again waiting 10 more days for me to return it and get a replacement.The second one:No transmit audio at all on any frequency. Good carrier but no transmitted audio at all. The mike tones also, ZIP no audio passing through the radio.It is being returned for a replacement AGAIN. I'm now waiting for another radio to appear at my mailbox.If you buy your tools from the Chinese tool store you know the quality you get, right?As a ham for over 30 years I thought, for fun I'd give them a test on the equipment bench, but I can't get a working one. At this very moment I have another exchange coming in the mail, if this one doesn't work, I'm really done.Please understand I'm not blaming the dealer at all they are very nice and continue to replace them.