Kenwood TK-3230 ProTalk Portable UHF Business On-Site Two-Way Radio- Black

These are great radios for several reasons. I bought them for my employees for use on cellphone towers. Actually had one fall from 250' and survive with minor cosmetic damage. Although I wouldn't recommend this kind of treatment, it attests to the durability of this product. Also worth noting are 1. Ease of use, 2. Compact in size, 3. Excellent sound quality. Lastly, we purchased these as an alternative to comparable Motorola radio model. The Motorola's antennas were longer and tended to snag on our guys' safety harnesses and other things, which caused them to break off. The Kenwood's antennas are much shorter and more convenient.

Imagine my disappointment and surprise when I "reordered" the same Kenwood TK-3230 ProTalk Portable UHF radios only to find that they do not clone to the same radios I purchased on Amazon previously. Also, there is only a 30 day return policy so I am stuck with 2 radios that do not work with my existing ones. We followed the You Tube videos on how to clone the radios to no avail. WHY produce a product that is not compatible and give it the same name? Very annoying. Other than that, if you are purchasing all new radios to work together, they work fine. Just don't try to add to an existing set.

Range not as good as we had hoped for.

It's a little less range than expected, 1 mile, a little less or a little more sometimes. And we are in a plain ranch but with lots of mezquite, you have to climb something to get a clear reception.

First, we had to have these programmed by a local tech company for an extra fee to get more channels then they turned out not to be strong enough to use in all areas of our elementary school. A great disappointment since we have quite a few students with serious health or behavioral issues and communication is extremely important!

We use these at a small hotel that's on a 5 acre property and they work very well. They tend to fade after about 2 years of rough use but they are much smaller than traditional professional quality radios (the ones with the huge antenna), and much more reliable than the dinky home-use ones that cost 1/3 of the price.

We purchased a pair of these Kenwood TK-3230s for communications on our ranch 8-9 hours a day, 6 days a week. They are replacing a series of Motorola consumer-grade units that alway would ended up failing within a few months. These are really much better than the Motorolas in every way for the heavy use we put them to. They transmit more clearly, battery charge lasts longer, and recharge more quickly. And so far, they are proving to be more dependable, with no sign of problems. These were more expensive to buy than the Motorolas, but I expect that they will end up costing less in the long run. My only suggestion for improvement would be a lock switch that would prevent accidentally changing the settings, which happens from time to time and makes communications impossible.

All I can say is good luck trying to figure out how to get all the functions working with the horrible instructions that are included with this unit. I went to one of their YouTube sites and they did a horrible job as well. The trick is the menu selection doesn't work the way the instruction manual says it does. You have to scan through all the channels first in the menu to get to the other functions. That is not the way the book says to do it. Good luck