I was lucky enough to be selected to review the GA-5S dual band FM Radio. I’ve never used or owned any of these entry level Chinese radio’s so I was interested to see how they compare to some other known brands radios!
Unboxing this radio reveals that it comes with…
- 1 x Radioddity GA-5S
- 1 x 1800mAh Li-ion Battery
- 1 x High Gain Antenna
- 1 x Charging Cradle (with 100~240V Power Adapter)
- 1 x Belt Clip
- 1 x Earpiece
- 1 x Wrist Strap
- 1 x User Manual
After assembling the radio (antenna & battery) and powered the unit to find that it was programmed with frequencies that are not for general use in Australia, this is not a problem as I’ll be reprogramming this for the 2m and 70cm bands and limiting the receive to the amateur bands only (144-148MHz 430-450MHz) as the ACMA are not to keen on these radios because of how easy it is to use them on frequencies that are not for the general public. Now I’ve not had or used baofeng radio’s before so this is essentially the internals of (from what I have read online) a UV5-R. The supplied software for programming the radio is very basic, but it is compatible with Chirp so you can take advantage of the repeater database and import your local repeaters. At the time I first tried Chirp the support for the GA-5S wasn’t available, but on the second reprogramming I did the latest daily build had included both the GA-5S and the UV5-RX3.
For the price point this radio is targeted for its certainly fine, however I’d possibly not run it on full power for extended periods as the radio will get hot!