This review is from my own personal experience with this radio. I bought and paid for this radio from a website that I subscribe to and in no way do I represent that individual(s) or the Baofeng company. Baofeng has been building and selling inexpensive radios for quite a while now. I have, in the past, bought at least 20+ of the Baofeng UV-5 radios and some of the variants of that basic radio. All of them have been proven to be reliable for their limited use. They were very inexpensive, and to some extent, they still are. For a first-time entry-level ham radio, capable of using FRS and even GMRS and up here in the interior of Alaska the Marine Band it is hard to beat this radio. They are low power (5 to 8 watts RF) and most of them use a free programming software called CHIRP.
NOTE: Sadly, CHIRP will NOT work for programming the DM32-UV radio.
CHIRP is much easier to use than trying to program them from the front face of the radio, or even worse using the Chinese version of the programming software shipped with the units.
The Baofeng DM32-UV is a DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) type of transceiver capable of transmitting and receiving using both analog signal transmission as well as Digital Mobile Radio format. It can also be used out of Ham radio range in the unlocked version, should one have a need for that setup.
Here are my findings on my experience with this radio:
The Good
They look cool. Not that cool has anything to do with how well they work, but for a radio that claims to have a lot of capabilities, and for a price which is very much below the average for other radios capable of the same function. China has succeeded in making an almost clone image of the Harris radios costing thousands of dollars more and used in the US Army. They come with an awesome battery capability. This is a very important factor for a radio that is designed to be used long term in a remote location where it may be difficult to recharge the battery(s) and needed for use in that location. They are inexpensive for the performance of their design. Well, I must take a bit of umbrage with this fact, yes, they are inexpensive for the market they are aimed at filling. But do they really meet the market?
They have a very well-made and durable case. On this score, Baofeng has made a good case for this radio. While it is not suited for an explosive environment, and it certainly is not going to survive in a wet rainy location, it is a tough plastic case in a size that I found to be very comfortable in my hand. Inside it was a pleasant experience to handle this radio. Outside, that is a comment best reserved for my next section of review.
The radio comes with its own charger for the type of battery used in the set, a USB cable for charging the radio either from the charger base or from another source.
It includes a carrying case and a “rubber ducky” antenna that serves basically as more of a dummy load than as a antenna. The range of the basic antenna is limited very much so if longer range is desired or needed then a high-gain antenna is going to be mandatory.
It includes a carry case that clips on the belt.
There is the ubiquitous Chinese translated to some other language, and then to English user manual. Trying to use this manual is going to demand a level of patience and understanding which is for me a bit of a challenge. It is a lot like trying to drink from a fire hydrant with a ton of information that is not all that well organized, and with the loss of translation into words that to us here in the USA may leave you scratching your head. It may well be possible that someone much smarter than I will come up with a translation that can make better sense of this handi-talkie, as was done for the UV5 series of radios.
In all models of this radio, it is possible to encrypt transmissions in PGP … I’m not going to discuss the “legality” of this feature, it is what it is. CAVEAT EMPTOR.
Indoors, the screen is very sharp and clear. Outside …not so.
Auxiliary items will work with this radio. Things like the earphone microphone and the military style headset work well in the industry-standard connector system in this radio. I did not test the VOX mode (voice activated transmit mode) since I never got that far with the programing issues mentioned in this report.
THE BAD
The CPS ( Computer Programming Software) for this radio mandates that the Baofeng programming cable with the FTDI chip installed and with the correct drivers for your computer be used. The problem is that the CPS is a mess. The radio does not come with the Baofeng programming cable but the same cable used for the UV5 version of the radio will work. Why they didn’t include the cable is beyond me. They do include a “C” type USB cable but that will not work for programming the radio.
The firmware installed in the radio (as of this writing) is defective. The latest version online is DM32.01.02.046RAR. That will kill this radio. DO NOT download or install it as it will erase the CPU and the radio is then useless. The firmware installed when I bought my radio and in the state as received, is defective in the fact that the digital side of the radio as well as in a limited manner the analogue side reverses the receive (RX) functions and transmit (TX) so if you use a frequency that mandates use of these features you will need to enter the data manually and in reverse order.
The programming language is a very poor version of Python and there are some individuals on the Internet who have posted corrected versions of software, but for the common person, myself included, will find it a serious challenge to get this rig up & running in any reasonable time, order, or fashion. This alone negates it as a serious rig for use in my book.
The screen is absolutely invisible in sunlight. After I charged up the battery initially after opening the package, and you must do this, I took the radio outside just to check the screen and how well I could see it in the daylight. No matter how I shielded it the screen was just invisible and totally useless to view. I checked the settings to see if there was an adjustment but could not find any.
As received, the radio was set to Chinese language. It was quite a challenge researching the internet to see how to enter the utility menu of the radio and convert it to English. This alone should have been a shot across the bow moment for me. I know from my research that I am not alone in this issue, however I am also aware that there are others who have not had these issues with their radios. Is this somehow a shot across the bow from China to the USA because of political tensions? I do not know but it sure is a pain in the southbound end of this old northbound mule.
The software is not included with the radio. Understand that this is a DMR radio, and DMR radios do not use normal software like CHIRP. They use CPS (Computer Programming Software) to program both the analog and digital sides of the rig. The only place I found an “official version” of the CPS was on the Baofeng website. It is in Chinese, and even if your radio opens in English, should you use this CPS it will reboot in Chinese …have fun finding the menu to convert it back to English.
Conclusion
For now, I have set the radio aside until I can devote more time to getting it set up. I have other DMT radios, an Anytone rig from Bridgecomm Systems, and a Yaesu FT991A that can be set up for digital communications as well. It truly thought that this radio would be a gap filler in my arsenal of radios since it was inexpensive compared to the ones I already have. Unfortunately, this has not proven to be the case. I do plan to keep it since I feel that once the serious issues of programming can be worked out it would be a very useful asset in my needs for communications.
As I said earlier, Caveat Emptor if you choose to buy this rig; you may get a good one as it seems to have been for others, or you might get the green BB in the head as I did. I will work with the Python programming I downloaded but it will be at my own risk, not yours. Hopefully, Baofeng will see these reports and do something to rectify this issue. Should this be done, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a few more of these rigs to fill my comms shelf. Until then, it is game over. At this point I have been able to manually program some limited analog repeaters in this radio but it is for my needs useless until the issues pointed out are rectified.
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