Kenwood TM-281A 144MHz FM Transceiver

This is a good radio, well worth the price, carefully and well documented and has plenty of power. In low power mode you can use the cigarette lighter (25 Watts), but to use high power mode (65 Watts) you will definitely need a battery connection. Most noteworthy is the case and construction. This is not a simple cheap device. There's a lot of aluminum and the front facing speaker is perfect. This is a product built to last, as are most Kenwood radios - the radio this replaced was also a Kenwood and was 20 years old. This one looks like it will last even longer. I highly recommend this radio over any radio from China. I bought one of those first because of the price. Its on the shelf in the shack because the documentation is terrible, the quality is substandard, and the alleged features don't all appear to function. I finally gave up trying to debug the documentation and went back to Kenwood.

Am a Kenwood fan. Have tried some others and prefer the user interfaces on Kenwoods. For that one, good, reliable, use it all your life radio, buy a Kenwood (like this one... I like it). For a radio you will hate because it cost as much or more and it was obviously designed by a non-ham because every function you need is 20 layers deep, buy an icom. Can't speak for Yaesu, but have heard mostly favorable reports. For a fun, throwaway, almost functional toy that costs a tenth of the price and 1 out of 10 will work great out of the box, 2 will work intermittently, 4 will work great if you take them apart and resolder them, and 3 will never work and have to be thrown away, buy the really cheap Chinese things, like Baofeng. I have several and love them. It's a crap shoot, but they're fun. For that one radio you can always count on that will never frustrate you, buy a Kenwood. My opinion only.

I havn't been on Ham Radio for almost 20 years but with the stay home due to Corona Virus, I started to get bored with the internet so I started to see whats going on with 2 meter radios these days. I was pleasantly surprised to see this Kenwood full feature transciever for only $150 so it was a no brainer to order it. It arrived in a few days and I was surprised to find that the entire chassis is a heat sink. Years ago you did not have to go thru all of the programming that todays radios require to get it on the air so I spent some time with the well written instruction manual and in about an hour I had two repeaters programmed into it although I have to admit it seemed a bit confusing at times. I bought a programming disc and cable from RT Systems ( reviewed elsewhere ) that made the rest of the programming a snap. At the time I did not know that Kenwood has a free download program for this task and an accessory cable ( not supplied ) for about half of what I paid for the RT Systems disc & Cable. I am using this radio with an Astron RS-12A power supply which is fine for the 25 watt output. I am using this radio with a Diamond x200 dual band gain antenna that has been on my roof for about 30 years, with 50 ft of 9913 cable. The SWR was a bit higher than I felt comfortable with at 2 to 1 and the radio folded back to about 18 watts on the 25 watt output setting. I knew either the cable or the antenna or both had to be replaced. I replaced the cable with new RG8X and that brought the SWR to a more respectable level of 1.4 to 1 at the band edges and 1to 1.1 at 146 Mhz. This enabled the radio to output 25 to 28 watts at the low power setting. The build quality seems quite good and I would expect nothing less from Kenwood after owning other Kenwood products for many years. The front panel layout is nice, the illumination for the digital display is adjustable. The front facing speaker is quite good when used in a relatively quiet area and the audio seems to be contoured for best possible vocal quality from a speaker of that size. Provision for an external speaker is available from an 1/8th inch phone jack on the back of the radio. Two items that make me give this radio 4 stars instead of 5 is the amount of heat radiated from the near wrap around heat sink on the back and bottom of this radio. Even with transmissions of 1 minute or less, after being in a qso for a while the heat sink is extremely hot. I installed the mobile mounting bracket to act as a bit of additional heat sink and even that gets quite warm, and this is only at the 25 watt setting. I dont think you would ever get a 100% duty cycle from this radio. The instruction manual does mention that when using the 65 watt output to keep transmissions shorter. I am going to have to use this radio with some kind of fan or other form of forced air cooling. To me, solid state and extreme heat are not a good match. The other item that causes me to give this 4 stars and not 5 is that the minimum ( Lo power ) setting is 25 watts. I think, considering the heat situation when running at this power lever, a 10 watt setting would be more appropriate. There is no internal adjustment to lower the power below 25 watts. I would have much more preferred power levels of 10 w low and 25 high which I really feel would be better for this radio considering the heat situation at 25 watts. I have not even attempted to try it at 65 watts even though I have a 35 amp power supply that I could use it with. I feel this is a good radio for the price and I hope to get many hours of enjoyment from it. I did buy an extended warrantee with it and I am glad I did in case it fails from the high heat it generates. It appears that this model has been available for quite a few years which indicates that it is popular and reliable. Yes, I would recommend this radio to others.

I've had this radio for over a year now, and it's been a great little radio. I have it connected to a j-pole antenna in my attic and have had clear sound-quality chats with people over 200 miles away (via repeater). Easy to program with the software. For the money, it's well worth it, and I would certainly buy another one. I'm even thinking of buying one for my brother-in-law on his birthday. Update: If you're looking to buy one of these, you might want to check out Ham Radio Outlet or GigaParts for the best prices.

Low price, high performance 2M FM ham radio. Rugged chassis, great front-facing speaker with plenty of volume. Like any modern rig, programming from the radio itself is a pain. I put in two local repeater frequencies just so I knew how to do it then downloaded CHIRP to put in the other 80 repeaters in my regular travel areas. Be sure to get the USB Programming Cable RJ45 8-Pin for Kenwood so you can program the radio from your computer. Yes, it adds $15 to the effective cost of the radio but you'll thank me later.

This is solid radio - easy to program - the menu is clear. With 65 watts on high power, it is really effective. I use it at my home base with a vertical antenna on the roof of the house, and a DC converter filtered power supply. Really happy with it - I also have a Kenwood TM 281A that I bought back in 1989 and it is in mint condition - still working as if new.

I had the predecessor to this radio (the TM-271A), and this one is even better. Took only a few minutes to install the mounting bracket in the car, and hook up the radio. I get nothing but good signal reports on transmit, and receive sounds even better thanks to that legendary Kenwood audio. On 25 watts I'm able to easily hit repeaters as far as 50 miles away. I haven't tested the 65 watt setting yet, because I still only have it plugged into the cigarette lighter receptacle. To use the high power setting, you need to wire the power cable directly to the battery. I also haven't tried to program channel information through the front panel, much easier to use a program like CHIRP, which is available on Linux, MacOS X, and Windows. CHIRP doesn't allow you to program the other features on this radio, only the channel data. To do that you need the MCP-1A program (Windows only) available for free from the Kenwood web site. Build quality is excellent, it's a solidly-built radio (Kenwood makes a commercial model which looks almost identical). If you need a good, inexpensive 2-meter rig, you can't go wrong with this one. This particular one BTW was an "Amazon Warehouse" deal, and it said "may have scratches and other cosmetic blemishes" in the description, but I haven't seen any. It looks factory new.

The radio itself feels pretty tough. I like the feel of the knob too, although I wish it was a bit bigger to make it easier to use while driving. The back light is plenty bright enough for night driving as well. Microphone gets good reports and when paired with a Nagoya antenna works wonderfully, I get nothing but good reports on all the local repeaters. While on high power it does get quite warm while rag-chewing so if the conversation is gonna go on for more then a few minutes I'd recommend switching to low unless you absolutely need it.