Wouxun KG-UV950P review - Part 6 - Initial Operation

After you have programmed your channels you will be eager to try the rig out. I connected up my dual band collinear into the SO239 socket on the rear of the rig.
I also had set both the default VFO power output to low and each memory had been pre-programmed with low power.
Connecting the microphone couldn't be easier as it is a latching RJ45 plug that connects to a socket on the side of the front panel. I'm not sure if this is actually a good connector for use on what is ostensibly intended to be a mobile rig but a lot of modern rigs tend to be using this connector these days.

First contact

Tuning to S20 and giving out a CQ gave an immediate response from a station about 30 miles away. Changing to another channel to continue the QSO revealed that the rig was very audibly quiet and the
signal to the other station was free from hum, pops or whistles. The other station stated the audio was very good and punchy. He also stated the signal was S8 on his rig. This was encouraging as I was only using low power on 2 metres which is stated as being 5 watts. Turning the wick up to medium (10 watts) pushed the received signal up to S9+20db and when on high power (50 watts) pushed his meter up to +40db. Not a vast difference but pretty good over that distance.

Switching to 70cm with the same station I got S6, S7 and S8 on the same settings (5, 10 and 35 watts). Again not band considering the distance.

I have been unable to transmit on 6m or 10m as I don't have a suitable antenna for these bands. At the moment there only appear to be mobile antennas on the market that covers all 4 bands without an antenna switch to select specific antennas. Obviously for a base station a mobile antenna is not really suitable as you need to provide a large steel sheet groundplane to mount a magmount onto.

However I have read that full power 50 watts is available on 6 metres and only 10 watts on 10m. The latter is not as per the advertisements in all the UK websites who sell this radio nor the manual itself.

Audio system

The power supplied to the internal speakers is 3 watts and this is plenty for a vehicle interior. The speaker in the microphone has 1 watt of audio fed to it and this also has a volume control to switch it down.
The rotary concentric volume controls on the rig itself work in click stops. This alters the volume from 0 to 16. In practice I have found that when set at 1 on either VFO the audio is too loud. Wouxun need to address this as operation late at night can be problematic if you don't want to annoy other members of the household or your neighbours. The only alternative is to switch the audio to the hand microphone and alter the volume on that.

I have mounted my radio under the PC monitor and connected a couple of cheap speakers. The audio from these is better than the internal speakers.

Operational idiosyncrasies.

I was speaking to one of my local contacts on a regular schedule and he noted that my audio volume dropped quite abruptly during the QSO. I checked the microphone connection into the rig and it was secure. I feared the worst and thought I must have a faulty rig. Then on another QSO I got a similar report from another station. Again I checked everything out and all was ok. Then I noticed when holding the microphone in my right hand I was covering the tiny microphone hole with my thumb.  This is the only communications microphone I have come across which has this issue. It is easy to avoid though.Now I am aware of that I hold the microphone slightly differently to prevent my voice from being blocked.