1801 or GD 77

[KB9LIQ]

With being able to load the open77 into the Baofeng 1801 I was wanting to know which radio is the way to go. Baofeng 1801 or Radioddity GD-77? The price is around $30 more for for the GD-77 but is it worth it? Been looking at the both for a while and really don't see much different between them. Now that I see some youtube stuff on loading the open77 firmware I don't know if it make a difference so I'd like to hear what others think. Also not sure on where to order to get it the fastest. Thanks for any help and 73

[KC7RBW]

This thread has some opinions on that: https://opengd77.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=673#p5861

Specifically this note:

The Baofeng radios seem to have worse RF performance than the GD-77.
I have seen some spectrum analysis plots of the RF Tx from a Baofeng RD-5R and it was quite dirty.

Hard to say if that refers to Baofeng radios in general or the 1801 specifically. And even with test equipment to verify the performance there's not a lot of consistency coming out of these factories. Some Baofeng builds are actually quite good while others are demonstrably poor. It's plausible that Radioddity has tighter quality control, but equally plausible that they sell the radios that don't meet their retail standards through other outlets.

[LY1RF]

I don't have gd77, but have two 1801. one is verry good in DMR & FM , other isn't. first have clear reception in fm, second works acceptable only if you set 100% backlight brightnes in FM , DMR is ok on both ...

[kd2lh]

I have both radios. My impression is that the GD-77 is the preferred radio. Often Radioddity runs sales, if you keep your eyes out for them.
Marc

[VK3KYY]

I was referring to the DM5R and RD5R, which has worse Tx and possibly Rx performance than the 1801 or GD77, because is has cut down RF stages, because the PCB is too small for separate Tx hardware for each band.

The 1801 is a non identical clone of the GD77 and appears to have similar RF performance to the GD77, but a number of people, including me, can’t use our 1801 with our hotspots no matter what offsets etc we apply

So my personal experience is the 1801 does not work as well as the GD77, but AKIF there is no technical reason for this

[EB3AM]

I have both ...
Without a doubt, the GD77!
The baofeng transmission is very dirty, looking at it with the spectrum analyzer

I have a Baofeng 1801 for sale!