I recently ordered the Baofeng BF-F8HP Pro without much expectations, except it is similar to the Baofeng UV-17 Pro GPS, but the firmware is upgradeable (unlike the hacks available for the UV-17 Pro GPS).
It is a multi-band radio and supposed to work on 2m, 1.25m and 70cm bands. It has air band and GPS. My quick summary is that this is the best Baofeng I ever purchased, and the only way to make this better, well…read on.
Here are some reasons why I love this new radio.
Better menu system – I prefer the new menu system because it divides the functions pertaining to the radio and channels, and other functions. You can still go into the menu and hit the menu number to jump to that menu option.
GPS – GPS function locks location fast and you can send the location information to another BF-F8HP Pro. I have tested this function to see if it works between the BF-F8HP Pro and the UV-17 Pro GPS, with no success. I analyzed the audio that is exchanged between the two devices, and they are indeed different. This is an area of improvement that Baofeng can make is to make this GPS location sharing be compatible across multiple radio models. If you are power conscious, you can shut off GPS quickly, hold the A/B button until the satellite icon disappears. Very nice.
Speaking of power, changing transmit power is much easier now. You can either hold the 3 or the 8 button to go from H – high, M – medium, and L – low.
USB-C charging – This is a warm welcome since in survival situations, you really want to be able to charge via USB as opposed to carrying a bulky desktop charger around. Good news is you can use a USB-C to USB-C cable to charge, unlike some other USB-C based batteries which only charges with USB-A to USB-C cables.
Less spurious emissions – I tested this and in fact the spurious emissions are reduced in comparison to the UV-5R.
The 1.25m (220MHz) band actually works with power. The UV-17 Pro GPS, I never got more than 0.09 watts out of it, so it was pretty much useless for this band. The BF-F8HP Pro I got over 5W out of it, and was able to communicate with a VX-8DR or another BF-F8HP Pro a few miles apart from each other (YMMV, I was in an optimal condition, not in a major city.)
Ability to scan and listen to air band frequencies is very nice. I heard to local airport towers quite clearly.
Audio is improved both on the speaker and the mic, though the mic on the UV-5R is quite good to begin with.
10 Banks of 100 channels each for a total of 1000 memory channels. Though scanning memory channels is limited to a single bank.
Frequency copy feature to copy a frequency and its tone settings from another radio is very nice. To get into frequency copy mode, press and hold the V/M button and hit the PTT on the radio you want to copy from.
They have software for programming the radio, which also supports firmware updates. This radio is also supported on CHIRP and I had no issues downloading and uploading configurations to the radio.
Finally, a list of preprogrammed weather bands that do not consume the 1000 memory channels. The first channel on the weather bands is the primary channel for my location.
The batteries do last quite a while at 5% transmit, 5% listen, 10% scan, and 80% idle as I have had the radio on for 24 hours and it was not even at 50% drained. If it works for over 18 hours, and I charge it the next day, I am fine with that.
Some things I wish were included in the features, and features that worked or worked better.
As I said earlier, the GPS location sharing transmission and receive coding should be compatible across all Baofeng models that support this. Currently, they are all different and incompatible.
You cannot select what you are scanning in terms of multiple banks. You select a bank, and you scan that bank. So, if you create a HAM and GMRS banks, you can scan one or the other not both simultaneously. I have gotten used to this on the UV-17 Pro GPS, so I will do the same.
There is still no WX alert for severe weather notification. To listen to weather stations, you hold the 0 button until it switches.
In summary, this is the best Baofeng radio I have purchased, and it should be on your wish list too. Keep in mind the Baofeng UV-Pro and Baofeng UV-17 Pro GPS are also great radios if you don’t need 1.25m band. There are more firmware hacks eventually coming out for the UV-17 Pro GPS, but I am looking forward to more firmware updates for the BF-F8HP Pro.
I hope this review is helpful.
