slourp!....Cheep Chinese HF radio

[Greekman]

http://www.wouxun.us/item.php?item_id=302

soon to be the Bao of the HF bands?

[Smurf Hunter]

Maybe I'm not far enough along on my amateur radio journey, but $300+ for a QRP rig is not a substitute for a 100watt transceiver.

Also if you want QRP proper antenna setup is more critical, thus a good tuner, etc.  Dont forget portable power :-)

[Greekman]

indeed the rest of the package & peripherals maintains its cost.

But there are so many ways one can use the Baofeng HTs. i bought mine for a simplex repeater radio or backup one
So thsi Hf rig one might buy for the same purpose of.
Or maybe to keep the cost down. For the price of a standalone  -817 he might as well have the whole package with power, antenna and tuner.

[redeyeprep]

http://www.wouxun.us/item.php?item_id=302

soon to be the Bao of the HF bands?

Hopefully with a different programming team!

[Carl]

It's 5 watt capability compares well to the 100 watt 'Normal' HF radio
as does the .22 caliber anti aircraft gun to a 50 cal quad mount.


Whispering for help might not be a good plan.
As a 'toy' or pleasure radio...great !
You will learn how to maximise your radio skills.
And learn to deal with frustration while trying to make contact.
It takes much more skill to use under powered radios and
this is why the hand held is not the best first radio either.

[TerryFrench]

Note: if you want an affordable SDR radio (QRP), build a Peaberry SDR kit. http://ae9rb.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=8 for $150. That's about 2W on a good day, and you will need a laptop or Raspberry Pi2 to drive it.
But as the previous person wrote, QRP is not easy (and we are not talking cost or time to build of antennas), so then you might be tempted to add a $300 50W all HF bands amplifier kit http://www.hobbypcb.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=94&virtuemart_category_id=22. But then you look at your antennas and wish you could tune them a little (and a QRP antenna tuner will not work over 5W), so you might add an automatic tuner kit inside the same enclosure as the amp for $180 http://www.hobbypcb.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=95&virtuemart_category_id=22
That's already $630 and not all bands (you would need 2 Peaberry to cover all bands). So while you might have guessed that this is my HF config, that's most likely not the best way to spend the $ :-) unless you are into building kits, like me. You will then also build a bunch of other "tools" (dummy load, antenna analyzer...)

At the end of the day, something already built will look attractive for $380 / all bands QRP, then you can add an amp and tuner to it (you will) :-)