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I recently ordered the Baofeng UV-17 Pro GPS without any expectations. It cost me under $50 with international shipping. It is a multi-band radio but supposed to work on 2m and 70cm (as well as 1.25m) bands. It has air band and GPS. My quick summary is that this is the best Baofeng I ever purchased.
Here are some reasons why I love this new radio.
Color screen – It is bright, large and easy to read.
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.
IP45 rating – somewhat rugged compared to the UV-5R which isn’t rugged at all. This makes it a bit more useful in damp conditions or even slight rain.
GPS – GPS function locks location fast and you can send the location information to another UV-17 Pro GPS. I am curious if I can send GPS coordinates to Radtel radios that support GPS (the screen looks very similar) but I haven’t tested it as I do not own a Radtel radio at all.
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. Still higher than the name brands like Yaesu, Icom and Kenwood, but lower than previous Baofeng radios.
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 (see my gripe below.)
List of preprogrammed weather bands that does not consume the 1000 memory channels. The first channel on the weather bands is the primary channel for my location.
Frequency copy feature to copy a frequency and its tone settings from another radio is very nice. You need to edit a button setting in the menu (MENU -> Radio Settings -> Option 25 – Press SK2), and change the value from FM RADIO to SEARCH. Once you do that, you press the SK2 button (bottom button on the left side of the radio below the PTT) and hold it while keying up on the radio you want to copy from. I did notice that the UV-17 Pro GPS is off by -2.5kHz, but that is an easy fix on editing the Channel memory. If you want to listen to the FM radio again, you’ll need to go to the same option and set it to FM RADIO instead of SEARCH.
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. It is supposed to last over 200 hours idle but powered on. I am not going to test that. If it works for over 18 hours, and I charge it the next day, I am fine with that.
Still uses the standard Kenwood K connectors for speaker mic, programming cable, and other K connector accessories.
And the last cool feature is the flash light is on the bottom of the radio. May times I want to see what is on a notebook and I had to flip the radio upside down to get some light on it. Now I just turn it on and it points down.
Some things I wish were included in the features, and features that worked or worked better.
The 1.25m band is interesting. It breaks squelch on my Yaesu VX8DR when the radio is nearby, but it definitely puts out no power (I checked using an analog meter and a digital meter). I would not say this is a tri-band radio, but maybe a future firmware update may fix this.
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.
You cannot change the transmit power as easily. You must go into the menu. I do have more than one radio, and the one with firmware version 1.28 or higher will allow you to toggle between HIGH and LOW by holding the 8 button.
There is still no WX alert for severe weather notification.
In summary, this is still the best Baofeng radio I have purchased, and it should be on your wish list too. The only challenge currently is you have to buy this from AliExpress (this is where I got one, this link contains the link to the vendor that shipped it to me, and they often go out of stock), and few other sites that ships from China. I ordered one from another site, and got the UV-17R though I ordered the UV-17 Pro GPS. Amazon only carries the UV-17R, and I don’t think they will be carrying the UV-17 Pro GPS any time soon. Also, you will see 4800mAh batteries for sale on the Chinese web sites, but they are indeed 1800mAh batteries. No vendor has made an extended battery for this radio yet (as of November 2023).
I hope this review is helpful.
