Retevis RT95 Dual Band Low Cost Transceiver
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2023
- Here we take a look at the Retevis RT95, also known as the CRT MICRON and Anytone AT-778UV.
Overall a simply to use, low cost, dual band radio for vhf and uhf. Maximum of 25 watts with 3 power levels down to 5 watts.
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The RT95 is probably my most used radio. My one complaint was that its US 70cm coverage was not complete. The US 70cm band ranges from 420 to 450 MHz but this radio (at least mine bought 2 years ago) stopped at 440 MHz. The fix is to change the radio's region setting. IIRC, the legit region choices are supposed to correspond to EU and US, but there's a third region: "Mode 2" which is wide open. Retevis themselves told me the region change process when I complained about the incomplete 70cm coverage:
To change "mode": With the power off, hold P4 and FUNC and Power buttons at the same time. Unit powers on to a menu: rotate the knob to select to select the "Mode" menu. Press and hold the PTT button, the rotate the knob to select Mode 2. This opens RX/TX to 136-174 MHz and 400-490 MHz.
Good info. So adjusting the mode setting not only gets the entire 2m and 70cm band in the US, but a much wider (not legal) transmit range? It would be nice if there were mode settings for transmitting in the legal range in each country but no more.
@@Liberty4Ever As long as you don’t actually use the non-legal frequencies you should be fine though right?
@@echofoxtrotwhiskey1595 - For the longest time, it was legal to receive any signal and only transmission was regulated. After all, it would seem to be as difficult to regulate what people received as it would be to regulate what people thought. Then came satellite TV. Receiving those signals was theft of service. Then came cellular phones. Receiving those signals was invasion of privacy... unless you're a government agent of course. I doubt there would be any legal ramifications for receiving whatever the Retevis RT95 could receive, particularly if you didn't tell anybody if you should receive some interesting signal.
My concern was accidental transmission. Retevis provides a few RT95 modes with different frequency bands. Other manufacturers such as Yaesu or Icom will sell country specific radios that only transmit where allowed by the country's regulating agency, but will often allow a very wide range of frequencies to be received. Generally, only cell phone frequencies are blocked from reception. I wish Retevis would provide one mode per country so the RT95 could be unlocked to transmit on the entire legal amateur radio band, and only the entire legal band, rather than relying on the operator not to make a mistake that results in transmitting on an adjacent government frequency. That's a big no-no that can result in loss of an amateur radio license. Mistakes happen. The radio should prevent such mistakes.
@@Liberty4Ever I don’t think you’d accidentally transmit unless the radio had spurious emissions issues or you’re keyed up on those frequencies and you hot mic? Still a learning ham though so I could be wrong. I think if you don’t key up the illegal frequencies I think you’d be ok on paper.
@@echofoxtrotwhiskey1595 - It's surprisingly easy to accidentally tune the wrong frequency and then transmit, thinking you're on a different frequency. I could call for ten minutes hoping for a reply and never questioning if I was on the wrong frequency. I think it's likely that the FCC wouldn't revoke your ticket if they believed it was a mistake, but they could. Mostly, they're looking to punish malicious transmissions, but imagine that your radio was set to automatically transmit on a repeater offset frequency. You could be tuned to one frequency (possibly even in the amateur band) and without the transmitter knowing to block out-of-band transmissions in your country, you could be transmitting on a government emergency response frequency. EMS could be responding on your transmit frequency asking you to clear the channel and you'd never hear them. You'd be blithely transmitting, "CQ to thuh repeater. Ain't there anybody out there? N6ABCD over." and jamming EMS attempts to coordinate their rescue efforts at a gruesome six car pileup on the interstate. That's an extreme example but it's easy to make a mistake and continue in error while causing significant interference outside the amateur band. As usual, government gives itself a pass when they make a mistake, but are much less forgiving when anyone else makes a similar mistake. The radio really needs to protect us from such mistakes, and that's even more true for new hams who haven't already made enough mistakes to have learned from them. It's much better to make a mistake like that and have the radio correct you by not transmitting, rather than having the FCC correct you by initiating action against you. I haven't done any of the MARS mods on my radios to open them up to transmit on nearby military frequencies, because I don't want to do that and I prefer that the radio prevent me from doing that. I like a radio that will receive as much as possible, although now most government transmissions (including garbage collection in my town) use military grade spread spectrum encrypted communications, something that amateur radio operators are not allowed to do. Ham radio operators invented radio and all advancements to radio, but aren't allowed to have private conversations. Only government is allowed to have private and secure conversations. Seems legit. :-/
I've been using the Anytone version for two years now. As a base station, it is a solid performer.
Other videos and websites have reported RT-95 is software locked for bands and can be opened by a keyboard during power-on to get 136 to 174Mhz & 400 to 490Mhz.
I think at some point that model was sold with three different varians like US-lock (like GMRS), ham-bands and fully open for business frequencies.
I have had this radio for a couple of years and it has performed quite solidly for me. Transmit audio always gets surprisingly good reports and receive audio is pleasant enough for me to use it as my main dual-bander in the shack. Excellent radio for the money. I also have the little RT98 mono-bander which I often use back-pack portable and sometimes mobile - again, it seems to have very good transmit audio.
I got my RT95 (VOX version) with the programming cable included just 2 or 3 weeks ago. What a lovely little radio! It's so easy to use that I was able to put the manual back in the box after just 2 hours. It packs enough power to let you hit repeaters within range and most nearby-ish simplex stations. It's simply a joy to use! Plus it costs less than most 5W HTs from the Big Three. It makes me smile every time I use this radio. It does everything that I need and nothing that I don't.
If you have the programming cable it's so easy to program it in CHIRP-NEXT, and if you go to the settings tab you can even reorder and reassign the P1 through P6 buttons (I set mine so P2 is POW and P4 is SCN), change the MON button so it toggles between squelch off and on instead of having to be held down to defeat the squelch, changed the knob's default function in memory mode from channel to volume, and changed the word RETEVIS om the splash screen to my callsign, amongst other things (like changing the scan from timer to carrier and the scan delay to 10 seconds, which both speeds up the (slow) scanning speed a wee bit to around 3 channels per second and prevents scan from resuming too soon if for some reason the carrier is weak.)
Hayden, VK7HA on his Ham Radio DX channel tested his RT95 on a spectrum analyzer and found that the TX is very clean indeed on both bands, with the second harmonic being well below the fundamental, third harmonic barely showing up, and no spurious emissions. I wouldn't have bought this radio if it had dirty transmit but it's just fine.
Bear in mind that with no fan, just a passive heat sink, the chassis can get not just warm but HOT after a long ragchew, so limit your overs accordingly. The bottom speaker has pretty good audio especially in combination with the speaker in the mic (I call it "poor man's Aess") but even a cheap front-facing external speaker is a big improvement. I use a Diamond (no relation to Diamond Antennas) TS-750 speaker which has attenuator and on-off switches on the front. The attenuator's handy for quickly halving the volume without having to turn the knob. Speaking of which, the radio has some quirks as do they all. For instance, now that the lone knob on mine acts as a volume control it doesn't work right away if the radio's scanning. I have to press on the knob to stop scan, then I can adjust the volume, then have to resume scanning.
73 Mat!
I've seen this chassis in different band's, across different brand name's. These radio's are a bargain for what you get. I was looking at a CRT version for 10, 11, and 12 metres from Knight's CB. Great video's as always.
Looks like a great radio. I have the Retevis RT-98 to monitor one of my AllStar nodes and it performs well.
Matt, your lighting is top-notch..
Thanks mate! 👌
Chassis is speaker definitely better than the mic speaker...no surprise there. I bet if you cranked your power supply up to the maximum spec voltage of 14.4v, you'd see the transmitter power output come up to the advertised specs. Trabsmit audio was surprisingly good .
I've had 2 of these for around a year. Cracking little radios
I've got the anyone version - love it as a cheap VHF/UHF FM radio
I finally ordered one on special for my qth so I can hit my repeaters. Can't wait. Thanks for all the info.🍻🤠🇦🇺
I use it as a daily driver for my local and repeater QSO's and I regard it as a solid performer, the screen is readable, and the menu is quite thougtfuly laid out, which is not a given for cheap devices. The power output is also decent. I use it with a speaker from a philips HiFi, so I won't rate the internal ones.
I've had the Anytone version of this radio for years and it's my main daily driver, only complaints is the speaker is tinny and the scan speed is slow but other than that it's a cracking little radio.
You can speed up the scan speed in the retevis programming software.
This is a nice little radio. I bought one in order to have around 10-odd watts for use during the previous "145 Alive" event. It does have a few quirks, especially the multi-function rotary encoder which we might think of as a "volume control". It is a little bit annoying having to first press the P6 button in order to have access to the volume function before you can set it, but it's a minor gripe. The internal speaker is quite loud and clear, and emits a good quality sound. By contrast I found the speaker in the microphone to be difficult to use. It could be that the issue is with my particular microphone, yours sound a lot better than mine. In spite of the quirks this is a great little radio, excellent value for money.
You can sort the volume / channel knob in the CPS.
@@M7BXR Hi! Thanks for the pointer. I'll have to see whether the CPS software runs under Linux with Wine, otherwise I'm stuck with using Chirp. Anyhow, this is still a really neat little radio with a good out-of-the-box experience. I can live with it's default configuration, and will most likely only add a few local repeaters and maybe PMR channels - all for which Chirp should do fine.
I had one a few year back good little radios
Nice one MAtt great little radio
the screen flip is great so we can always expose the internal speaker for audio quality.
I might need one to hit the repeater from my qth as my ht's can't.🍻🤠
I just bought one of these for prime day and got it installed a couple hours ago in my car. Pretty impressed so far, now I need to learn more about what you can do with the built in software.
Update on this comment.. I bought another one for a home base station lol!
Hello, can you tell me can this radio listen a FM comercial stations? 88-108Mhz?
@@zvjezdaniput6121 it does not have that feature.
Good for PMR...... & ive also done the 'detachable' head mod, so it's like a Yaesu FT857D. !!
Any info on how to do this mod?
Thanks 😁
for better microphone modulation you need to install microphone amplifier in hand mic.
Modification of an Anytone / Retevis / CRT Micron microphone by Gert Bartelink
but personally i did similar mod however without getting rid of small speaker. I just desoldered the original microphone and soldered it to the amplifier using small wires (before removed big microphone from the amplifier board)
Hi Mat, I just got myself one of these. The Abbree seems to drop power while longer transmissions and the pin layout of the mic is unknown since the manufacturer does not answer to my mails. This RT95 can do APRS or packet since the audio comes trough the mic. I found a video about this on YT. I send you the schematics by mail if you are interested to do a video on this subject. I have a TNC-X in my shack so I'm planning to wire a cable to use this radio for Winlink, APRS and packet. Cheers & 73 de Phil ON4VP
How about MARS and CAP frequencies for us that are members of these organizations who can legally use these frequencies? Is there a DMR capable radio with similar dimensions which would provide us with greater versatility. As for microphone speaker, not. I could understand if one used a military style handset where you need to keep it up to your head when talking in critical environments. As for the screen flip feature, somewhere in the past I recall one manufacturer having this option. I know it was a Motorola option for the Visar / HT1000 series of portables with top mounted channel display. Interesting bit of kit in general.
It is a great radio for beginners however the outgoing microphone audio is weak, and there is no way to adjust the mic gain. Using an aftermarket microphone is recommended with a higher input gain.
I notice you power supply voltage drops a bit on the high power setting. If it maintained 13.8 Volts i am sure it would make 25 Watts.
low power is a problem ...in the car i have to start up the engine or no tx at all
Brilliant radio for the cost, can't knock it. It will do PMR446. Only small gripe is the amount of characters for the memory text.
Cool that it has a mid power mode.
These are pretty decent, but I feel like you might have missed a few quirks. For instance, mine (Anytone US version) was unlocked for GMRS from the get-go. To adjust the volume, you have to click the function button, tap another button, then you can adjust. Not great. The lowest volume level is really loud, like most Chinese radios. Not fun if you use it as a base. The S meter is basically useless. Compare it to a Yeasu and you'll see what I mean. Scan speed is PAINFULLY SLOW. You'll find yourself clicking that tuning knob constantly to get in and out of menu functions. It gets tiresome. It is a solid build and the display looks very nice. The mic is pretty decent, although, like you said, it's plasticky. Final nitpick is intermod. This radio will pickup adjacent channels pretty badly if you're in a high RF area. For the money, it's pretty decent, but it's not all wine and roses.
Thanks for the review. Can you run this off your car's 12V power supply, or do you need to connect it direct to the battery? I was just wondering if the current draw could potentially blow the fuse.
You might get away with using the car's accessory (cigarette lighter) outlet, but ONLY on the low TX power setting. Much better to wire it in with its own fuse to a heftier source. In my Toyota pickup I stuffed a crimped blade connector terminated wire into an empty fuse position in the under-hood fuse box, with an in-line fuse near the fuse box end of the wire. The other end of the wire I fed thru the firewall where other wire bundles already passed into the cab.
My Retevis RT95 turns on by itself when I connect the power wires. Can anyone tell me how to disable this feature? In which menus to act. Better a manual way because I have problems doing it via PC. Thank you.
I have the Anytone version of the radio, it can be programmed with chirp. you can change the settings to have it transmit in gmrs and frs if necessary
How about MARS and CAP frequencies for us that are members of these organizations who can legally use these frequencies?
Thanks for the review, some of these cheap Chinese radios are better than others! I had a Leixen VV-898 that curled up and died from pager overload when on 2 meters .yet my Yaesu and Kenwood radios were fine, I suppose you get what you pay for!
I have twelve, 898. In the last 8 years 3 have died. One came without certain pages in the menu making it useless. They need a low swr and that is why mine are slowly dying out. At $79 in 2013...they were a bargain.
I use a diplexer for two different antennas with my one 898.
I have a filter on the VHF side.
Will it crossband repeat?
With reprogramming, can this do 476.4250-477.4125MHz? Thats the UHF CB frequency in Australia.
Yes. See my other comment here on how to "open up" the TX range.
I have it, works fine, nice not to have a fan.
My Micron did 446 out of the box.
unlock frequency tip : ua-cam.com/video/yrHP_fFvc4s/v-deo.html
Awesome! Will have to try this on mine. Thanks
Noob radio question, why would you want 2w when you could have 22w?
Use the battery for longer if say the engine in the car is off and you reach whoever you need to without more power anyways.
Also RF exposure.
If you're using a trunk mounted antenna and you have passengers, you should avoid high transmit wattage.
Here is a good example. On the Marine VHF band , Channel 13 is reserved for talking to harbor masters or river lock masters. On this channel you should switch to 1 watt of power. So, to eliminate talking over other harbors or locks in the area they do this. With as little as 1 watt and antenna 8 feet of the surface of the water you can talk 2-4 miles.
Low cost low performance
That's a pretty cool little radio for the price.
Apparently it has a seperation kit available too for remote head operation.