BINGFUDual Band VHF UHF 136-174MHz 400-470MHz Ham Radio Antenna Handheld Two Way Radio SMA Male Soft Antenna 2-Pack for Icom Yaesu Vertex Ham Radio Walkie Talkie Standard Horizon Marine VHF Radio

built 2 hotspots but the antennas that came with the HAT were not very good. The center pins would get pushed in when screwed into the HAT making for iffy connections. Bought these as replacements and they work like a charm. Have not tried them on an HT only a Hotspot.

Bought these for my UV-5R and my soon to arrive GMRS-9R to use at work as to not damage their stock antennas. Using it with my 5R over the matter of a few weeks, its a really nice antenna. I'm not a radio expert, but for general use they work well. Reception is quite well, so long as there aren't too many obstructions. Transmission is shockingly good too. Range is a bit less than my stock antenna, but enough I can get through to my coworkers from our concrete warehouse. Durability is good too. I've bumped them into things countless times and they hold up well.

Worked well with my scanner for a good 3 months and then unfortunately, the rubber started to detach from the spring. You could save it by supergluing it back together. Overall it actually worked better than the original antenna that came with my radio and gave better signal strength, even being 4x smaller. It’s under $10 for two, so you could say it’s worth it.

Sometimes it is preferable to keep your comms close in for security and privacy and save the long range antennas for when needed. These short antennas fit the bill for close in comms, i.e. a small farm, buildings, on a cruise ship, etc. They fit the UV-5R perfectly and because they are very flexible there is less likelihood of damaging the antenna connection points that can be a weak point of portable radios. I am giving these a 5 star at this point and will update if any changes to that opinion. *Update* Ordered two more for my pair of 5RM radios

I recently bought these stubby Chinese Bingfu dual band antennas because I thought I would get the same quality performance that the higher quality Diamond RHF10 or Nagoya NA-810 SMA male stubby antennas gave me. I WAS DEAD WRONG! The saying you get what you pay for is very true if you scrutinize and dissect these antennas like I did. I actually sacrificed a perfectly good Nagoya NA-810 SMA male stubby antenna to compare its internals to this Bingfu antenna. The difference was as night and day. I had a feeling the internals would be different just by bending the Bingfu antenna slightly compared to bending the Nagoya antenna. The rubber felt cheaper and softer on the Bingfu, the length of the antennas is not the same where the Nagoya is a few millimeters longer. The coil metal used is much thicker and sturdier on the Nagoya but that was not what shocked me the most. What really caught my eyes was the base of the antenna where the coil connects. The difference was like apples and oranges. The Nagoya has a larger metal base in height and diameter compared to the flimsy Bingfu antennas. I wish I would have uploaded some pictures of my experiment but unfortunately it didn't occur to me at the time and those dissected antennas were tossed in the garbage a few days ago. All I will say is this much.....I have learned my lesson not to fall for these too good to be true offers on some of these cheaper priced Chinese antenna products that are flooding the US market built with cheaper quality sub standard materials, imperfections and simply do not give you the performance that their Japanese or Taiwanese counterparts will give you. Save your money a while longer if you don't quite have it yet to buy the more expensive quality items because at the end of the day buying the cheaper crap just to save a few dollars will cost you more in the end. No more cheap Made in China antennas for me that's for sure.

It works great but the rubber cover comes off and exposes the coiled wire

I must admit I was surprised by this little antenna. I bought them for the convenience of sticking a radio in my pocket and talking to other members of a group within a mile or so of one another. This morning, I contacted a repeater 20 miles away and came through clearly with a 5-watt radio. I tried on two other similar radios with the same result, so it wasn't specific to that radio. It's a straight shot between two high points to the repeater, but that's still pretty good. I was able to do the same with the 2 meter and the 70 centimeter repeaters, so it is genuinely dual band. I couldn't hit the more distant repeaters that I can get with longer antennas, but whadda ya want from a 2.5" stubby?

I have an assortment of Baofeng(ish) type radios. I was a little surprised to find that these, for me on VHF, work as good as the standard rubber-ducky antennas for receiving. The TX is rather dismal but that is to be expected for an antenna this size. I mainly use this antenna when I just want to monitor or have some close by communications. The price and performance make these easily worth 5 stars.