Retevis RA87 40W Powerful Long Range GMRS Mobile Radio

It is a nice radio. Works well. Easy to set up and get on the air. Have had decent reports on fairly distant repeaters. The big downer is the output. 23 watts on high and under 3 watts on low. I paid for 40 watts, I'd settle for 35.

This is a great radio! My first I use as a base station that I planned to use as a mobile once I got it loaded with all my local frequencies. However the Retevis CPS that you use to program the radio is absolute trash and it would have taken far to long to enter everything to make it a viable mobile option for me. I had been using it as a base for several months and a few others on my local repeater had them also and we all agreed that we loved the radio and hated the CPS. I recently updated Chirp to program a different radio and happened to notice that it was now supported. I quickly connected my base and was very pleased with the Chirp support so I ordered a second one to use as a mobile. There are better mobile units out there but for the money this one is great bang for the buck. The menus are strange and don't make much sense but with Chirp it's very easy.

Suggest if vou internet search for RA87 Chirp There is a good working instruction set for how to use your RA87 with Chirp ((Turn on chirp developer mode )) and click on file dropdown menu) file, select py file you downloaded to load module RA87..... per instruction set When thats done and you’ve done the download to radio > using the supplied programming cable click on view > show extra fields It then lets you check mark those frequencies you dont need scanned for com activity You can also add UHF ham repeaters @ frequencies to monitor and listen to You can listen but not transmit on ham repeaters due to current firmware Suggest have a great day

The first one I received had issues, but the replacement was sent quickly and I couldn't be happier with this radio. I'm still learning all of the menu items and features. Their software leaves a lot to be desired, but this radio is compatible with chirp. Good job guys, keep making quality products.

After learning how to program it, the radio works very well. Clear signal and easy to use—great value!

Easy install. Range is great and the compactness allows it to be put almost anywhere!

install. Great range. Easy to use.

I bought these to use on the farm and they are very handy to talk between drivers to communicate in the field.

I love this radio. Was a little tedious to program but once it was programmed, it works great. Took a little bit of reading the manual to understand all the buttons on the front of the radio. But it was a great investment. I am new to GMRS radio and would definitely buy this radio/antenna combo again without hesitation.

We use Retevis radio in all our guide trucks down in Baja and sometimes we have customers with a different radio setup. We love these.

The RA87 radio does everything I need. It is great for talking to each other while out on the trails.

Great Product! Easy to install, and works great. Definitely worth every penny!!!

Works great!! Above average range from expectations

Great product , easy instal .Nicely tucked up in my Jeep

Just tried them out and it was clear as day 8 miles away!

Totally awesome job in such a small package . Works great for our everyday use.

Bought to communicate with truckers during chopping. Does the job I need it to do but must use external speakers on mist noisy environments and upgrade the antenna for clearer sound.

The instructions were easy to follow and install was a breeze.

Best walkie-talkie I’ve tried. Solid build, crisp audio, and long-lasting performance.

The radio works great, easy to program, and has good audio quality. I was able to hit a repeater 50 miles away!

This radio is a game changer

This is perfect for a mobile or home base station. 40 watts of power! Easy to install...if you plan on using this for a home base station you'll need to buy the desktop power station to run it from an outlet. I bought the Retevis RAR87 bundle and works excellent.

Installed this in my Jeep, works awesome. It’s very clear, and reaches a long ways. I’ve used it on trails talking to people 8+ miles away through hills, trees, etc. it sounds great.

Right out of the box. As always, shipping was very prompt.

Works great in tractors. Love the design and ease of user

I’ve got 10 tractors and 7 semis that I’m slowly filling with Retevis radios and you honestly can’t beat them. The tractor bundle they offer is a great deal in my books.

I bought this recently to add to 3 other radios that I purchase over a year ago. We use it mainly for communication during silage harvest on our farm and it really works good for us. Especially useful when training young drivers. And my kids have a lot of fun with them in the off hours.

I bought 4 of Retevis RA87 for the trucks and combines. They are very easy to install although the stick on mic holders did not hold. In flat to rolling hills we had no problem reaching out 10 miles with good quality. The elevator is 7 miles away in the bottom of a ravine and I could always reach the truck driver. The speaker is not loud enough at times if there is any background noise. I’m very happy with these radios and will buy again.

Work Great in our rolling terrain. Installing in my entire fleet.

Bought one for grain cart and one for combine. We can talk at least 3 miles apart, haven’t tested farther apart. Replaced CBs that wouldn’t talk across a 1/4 mile field.

Installed one in my combine and one in the grain cart tractor. So far, clear reception for easy communication

I purchased 6 RA87 mobiles for our farm equipment. So far we are very pleased with the product.

I bought this for our plow trucks and it has helped us out tremendously in areas without cell reception

I bought 4 x RA87. They work great in the combine and grain cart. I can also talk to the semi 15 miles away.

I bought this for my UTV. Everything is excellent quality. Everything is included. Excellent antenna and coax and mounts. We talk 8 miles in hills and canyons and miles to the handhelds HA1G (which other UTVs in our group have.) We put this RA87 mobile radio in the front of the UTV pack and 1 in the rear because we can reliably talk for miles. I installed the 5 watt in my truck. That works great travelling with campers and motorhome caravans. Be sure to install coax with NO tight coiling of coax! Do research on proper installation, and you will be super happy with RX and TX results!

Exactly as ordered and fast shipping very good experience

We by fear these units to put our trucks and place of C b's. The audio appears to be clear and the range is excellent. The unions are small and compact and easy to install. All in all a good radio and I would recommend to anyone.

Had this for a couple of weeks now, great reception! Speaker volume could be a little louder.

Bought a couple of weeks ago. So far so good. Great features

purcahsed several units to install for fall harvest, couldn't be happier! easy to install,very compact,use friendly,and works well.

great performance

I had 2 handheld Retevis radios, employees either talk to much or forgot to charge them regularly which made for long days. Upgraded to these wire in radios and we are really impressed with the increased range and how small they are. We are putting in all tractors now.

Using them in our farm equipment, easily getting 10-15 range out of them.

Bought some a couple years ago and they work great

Bought these a month ago, they reach all my fields

This bundle is great with the antenna. Radio has awesome clarity and distant reception.

Nice product fit in the combine well. Wired up easy

Clear sound and easy to install. The distance isn’t what I was hoping it would be.

Well im no professional but this radio is perfect for me. Installed in my xp1000 for off road communication. Works great. The distance range is amazing, even in the mountains. This is my second one now. ( two different machines ). Both work great. Can’t beat them for the price. Would highly recommend.

This radio is putting out 34.5 watts. It is so simple to program repeaters manually, no need for software. Great radio. I recommend this radio.

Ordering was easy and delivery was quick. Everything was included for installation

Your product is very easy to wire up and antenna install was easy. Works better than the cb they are replacing. My use will be for short range communication combine to cart tractor. Escort vehicle to equipment moving moving down roadway.

Bought four radios and installed in combine and tractors. Been really happy with the range and clarity so far.

We added this setup to our three harvesting machines (9870, 9770, Grain cart tractor) super easy to instal in deere machine with the help of Retevis support. Wish we would’ve added these years ago.

Very easy install. Shipment was also very timely.

Good radio with good range also the compact size is nice

easier to install. All items you need to install are included. Good strong signal.

Five stars all the way. Needed some radios for some of our equipment, and the bundles they suggested were exactly what we were looking for. Kits had everything that was needed, good quality, easy installation. Will last a very long time. If you're looking, don't hesitate.

Was simple to install and works great with hand helds

Very happy with these radios in our combines/tractors/trucks. Max range i have tested is 16 miles (100’ elevation difference, trees, crops, and a town between) and worked great. Started with 4 radios and have 10 now since work so well on our farm.

I like the small size of the radio. I haven’t installed it yet in my pick up but I will be and I will add more to my review.

A great radio for a base as i use it and a sturdy looking mobile .

It's a good GMRS radio. I love the size of it, nice and compact.

I give it 5 stars, because I think this mobile radio is very easy to program and simple to use, and another important, powerful, so long-range communication to reach.

This works great. I would definitely recommend. It’s super simple to use.

Good power and super simple to use.

It is an awesome radio

Overall great Radio! Output power is good and the radio performs. I have been using this for a few years and love the size and convienienc of the radio. The readout is easy to see with a speaker that sounds good and has adequate volume. I recently purchaced my GMRS licence to gain access to repeters.

Easy to program on the radio itself or (recommended) via software. Performs as advertised, prompt, and I mean PROMPT shipping!!! A bit of a learning curve compared to some other radios, but not overly complex.

I have bought several different gmrs mobile radios. Hands down this radio is the highest quality radio under 200 dollars. It rates up there with some 400 dollar radios. I have two of them I like them so much. And yes I have hooked them up and used as a simple repeater, I do not suggest that you do that unless you have a duplexer and a spectrum analyzer and know how to use it. Great sound great distance I can hit some repeaters when the conditions are right around 75 miles away. Talk on simplex 20 plus miles in I highly populated area. Best radio for the money hands down.

Works great for GRMS, that's the sole use it was purchased for due to the 40 watt rating

The build is rugged and does not feel like a toy. Programing is not the easiest but it’s manageable. Probably get another one and make a repeater out of them.

this is a great radio. Measured : 40 watts out .A great radio for a base as i use it and a sturdy looking mobile . The manual again.. is almost useless.

I bought this radio based on price, power, compatibility with CHIRP, and functionality. I researched a lot of options, and there are many reasonable options. This one happened to hit the sweet spot for me.

GREAT LITTLE RADIO AND ACTUALLY PUTS OUT MORE THAN 40 WATTS

I received the Retevis RA87 40watt, something was wrong with it, Retevis replaced that radio in 2 days. The new mobile radio works great, it's got great features and comes with easy to read instructions. I will be reviewing more Retevis products on YouTube!

I highly recomment this radio especiall for mobile use because it is built to handle off road uses. The spect seem to be very reliable and Retevis offers excellent technical support for their products. I own 4 of the RA87 radios

Good radio, signal reports were good into a repeater some twenty five miles away. No problems with the features of the radio with the exception of RF power output which was not as advertised when measured by a meter into a dummy load.

The Retevis RA87 is exactly what is says it will do in performance. I am well satisfied. I specifically like the three different power settings. The size is perfect, the quality seems superior. I will recommend this make and model.

I was skeptical purchasing this on Amazon. I got the kit with the fiberglass antenna. Long story short I am hitting a repeater 48 miles away in the mountains of Virginia. Took me a little bit to get the repeater dialed in with the RA87 software and CHIRP but finally got it due to my incompetence. This in my opinion gets a 5 star. Just bought the RMB90F dual band base station hope it works just as well.

This is an inexpensive yet very effective GMRS radio. Here is what you can expect: 100 channels on the left bank, 100 channels on the right bank. Chirp compatibility / programability with cable included. Good scanning capability. Squelch knob or per-channel squelch programming. Low/High power selected from front panel. High power output reaches 40w in the 462.xxxx frequencies, and about 28w in the 467.xxxx frequencies (repeater inputs). Signal reports from a repeater 63 miles away from me state that I sound great, full quieting, minimal background static, rich voice. The speaker is loud, I can even hear it in my old Bronco with the windows down and the oversized exhaust rumbling away. You can *listen* on any frequency from 400MHZ to 480MHZ (transmit only on GMRS frequencies, of course). Channels can be named up to 6 characters. Potential things that will be confusing: Even the newer version of the manual is a little unclear in some respects. Strange translations. Frequency call-out feature is confusing to set and use. Front panel power selection only offers low/high, but Chirp offers L, L2, L3, M, and H (and they all work correctly). Every channel is preprogrammed with a different CTCSS or DCS tone. Why? Channel selector knob sometimes doesn't register clicks if you turn it fast (not a problem, just strange firmware behavior). But in the end, you get a high powered (nearly 40w) GMRS radio with fast scanning, 200 memory channels, repeater compatibility, great sound quality.

Purchased the two pack of RA87 radios. Used them to build a repeater for use up North when fishing. Have only tried the rig around home. It works flawlessly. Very easy to program and convenient to transport. Great repeater for the price!

Get ready to spend an hour programming. The software isn't nearly as user friendly as CHIRP. If there is a way to copy and paste channels I couldn't find it. You have to click on each channel and turn off the pre-set CTCSS TX and RX Tone for every simplex channel and then program the Repeater Channels (which don't have pre-set CTCSS Tones. Then when you get everything programmed the way you want it on the Left Side...turn around and do it all again for the Right Side. On a good note, once you get one radio programmed you can just clone the next one. Aside from the programming, the radio seems to function very well. Power is close to to 40W when hard wired into my truck. Reports from other users on my local repeaters were good sound quality and volume. I was able to connect to all the same repeaters I usually hit with a 50W BTECH. One slight issue with the hardware, the shield over the mic connector is long, I had to shave off 1/16" of the plastic to get it to go in far enough to lock into place. Not a big deal but something to be aware of.

This GMRS unit is easy to set up and operate. I was able to quickly program the local GMRS repeater sub-audible tones (CTCSS) into the unit. Receive audio is great. Transmit audio is also very good. Overall range is very good for our terrain.

The best GMRS I have used for off-road use so far. While on the trails with the Jeep as a tail, I was able to communicate to the lead with no issues. I was even able to communicate with other groups miles away in the dense vegetation and hills.

great radios the range is unbelievable we use them while we farm and ranch. very very easy to use

got my RA87 radio with the programming cable. Really a good GMRS Mobile radio, easy to use and install on my car easily. I like it very much. Plan to order another one to build a repeater.