I have one in my vintage radio arsenal! Can confirm I bring it with me on a forklift when out portable.
Bulk aside, it is an outstanding HT in my personal experience. 1 entire Watt to play with, you won’t know yourself after that first QSO!
Works like an absolute stallion and sips quietly on a cocktail of AA batteries for aeons.
And sometimes you know it is a Handie-Talkie because it says so right on the tin.
Weighs only 2.5 kg (without the 11 D-sized batteries that would power it for weeks).
Doesn’t do SSB, although I have considered building a 80m or 40m SSB transceiver into the case
Yesterday morning I worked Matthew M0MZB/P on 144mhz CW who was on G/LD-029. Reports exchange, He sent 599 and I received 559. Distance was 167.9 miles or 270km. He was using a modified Quansheng H/Held with a board fitted he built himself. The signal & tone was loud and clear. We spoke later on 2mtr FM where he confirmed what radio he was using. I thought this was worth a mention on this subject, Well done Matthew.
2026-03-07 07:42 GW0PLP M0MZB/P G/LD-029 Illgill Head 144MHz CW 270
That is mega. So fun to see all this 2m CW activity! 
When I first moved to G/LD land about 8 years ago I couldn’t believe the first 2m S2S contact I had with GW/MW. 5/8 reports both ways with both of us using 5W FM and RH770 ½-wave whips. He sounded like he was local. VHF radio was made for mountain to mountain dx contacts especially with some of the RF path over the sea.
Thanks. Gives me some hope, but I’m guessing there must have been some ducting or aircraft enhancement going on. Looking at the path to my QTH (which is about 25 miles further, so would likely have been more difficult) it seems there’s an obstacle of about 2kms of rock in the way (once surface curvature is taken into account).
Right. For G/LD I’d get very little of that from my QTH.
You probably need to be west of Caeliber Isaf GW/MW-031 and preferably up a hill. Looking at my 2020 QSO with GW4TQE/P the direct RF path to there from Loughrigg Fell G/LD-047 manages to spend almost half its length over the Irish Sea just west of Blackpool Tower.
It’s a venerable antique and in many ways it would be a shame to canabilise it.
However, it’s hand portable but not handheld.
This is a handheld: SCR-536 - Wikipedia
And this is a handheld: AN/PRC-6 - Wikipedia
These are the earliest. Note the similarity to today’s handheld radios and the massive dis-similarity to an 817/818. In fact my KX2 is a handheld… it has in internal battery, internal mic, internal speaker and with its AX2 antenna can be held in one hand and used as such. Ideal for 10m repeater working 
Thought it would be interesting to drop my experiences with my first time activating using just the Quansheng yesterday on 5 activations in SW land.
The radio performed well, I was using an RH770 telescopic antenna with it and it did not overload it at all, I managed to make plenty of QSOs to the point I qualified 5 summits using just the Quansheng alone. The SSB contacts worked fine, though I only got 3 so more chance to improve upon this going forwards.
The only downside I would say is that the sensitivity is not as good as my FT-65 handheld, where weaker stations had A LOT of noise and I had to listen carefully, which luckily on the instances it happened I was able to decipher a signal report and a callsign.
Overall I say for the price point it is a fantastic radio, not as performative as a main brand handheld but does offer the accessibility of DSB which would be fine from the conversation I have seen for the challenge. If I were an M7 again this would be a perfect handheld to bring up a hill to try it out.
I will certainly be using it on future activations where I am not focussing on VHF, and may opt for using the FT-65 for the ones I do focus VHF on.
I guess the next field test is to hook up other antennas, such as a Slim Jim and a Yagi, and see how it copes.
Having failed to hold my 1.7kg FT817/RH770/ext mic/4-Ahr battery “hand(s)-held” away from my body [because it was desensitising the 770 whip] for a whole QSO on my first 2026 Challenge activation, on the subsequent 8 activations, I’ve found using a roll-up J-pole (on a 5m pole) quick to deploy and gets excellent reports. And my arms don’t ache!
FT817 + DC cable 1081g, mic 168g, external 4-Ahr battery 349g, RH770 93g
On Ben Cleuch GM/SS-059 yesterday it was too windy to deploy the pole and flowerpot antenna.
I thought it was going to be a handheld only activation with my Quansheng on 2m FM, popping up out of the shelter to QSO then back down out the wind to write it down and thaw my fingers.
One of my usual chasers suggested 2m SSB so I dug the FT818 out of my pack and fitted the supplied Yaesu rubber duck.
Standing up with the strap round my neck and 2watts from internal batteries I was very surprised and delighted to get a reply to my 2m SSB CQ from M0PJE/P on G/NP-002. I had to think twice as I wrote it down and nearly wrote GM/NP-002 ! 198km between the summits.
I haven’t used the FT818 like that in a while, preferring the flowerpot antenna hanging from one of the back guy lines for my 6m pole with the link dipole on the other legs. It was good to get me thinking out of the box under slightly adverse circumstances.
Andy
MM7MOX
Thanks for this Jared, good info on SSB,. I don’t have any radio capable of anything other than FM so I d be interested to hear how it goes with the Quanshenf and an external antenna. I have the FT65 as well and I find it excellent for VHF with a slim jom.
Last week I used a Quansheng with the IJV firmare on Bardon Hill G/CE-004. With a Slim G antenna, my best SSB/DSB contact was GW/NW-042 Moel y Gamelin. Which is 82 miles. Signal reports were 44 both ways. Not bad for a £15 radio. As a side note as many will know there is a big commercial transmitter on Bardon Hill, so I was using a Sotabeams Bandpass filter.
I think that was me on the other end. I was using an FT817, and I didn’t notice anything unusual about your signal - very interesting to hear that it was the Quansheng. ISTR that the Sotabeams filter has a 3dB insertion loss, so there is headroom for a greater path loss (longer distance) from a summit where the filter is not needed!
Yes it was you Adrian, thanks for the QSO! The Quansheng is not a classic, but at the price it is great for experimenting. I also have another one permanently set up for SSTV. With different firmware options you can choose a build for whatever you want to achieve. For serious 2m/FM I use a Yaseu FT70D.
Just a heads up. There are a few different versions of the Quansheng K5(8). The V1 accepts most of the different firmware builds.
73 Martin
Hallow 2m sideband freaks in UK. I’m not interest in the Challenges, but 2m outdoor QRP has been one of my favorites and IC-202/FT-290mkII are my collections. However, they are too large to be called HTs. Mizuho MX-2 series are only HT equips mentioned so far. Here, you can see another solution in Japanese market.
The left photo is my LS-202 by Belcom which covers 144-146 MHz SSB/FM with PLL and VXO using a thumbwheel switch. Output power is 1-3W depending on DCV and your talk power. The weight is 0.5kg with UM-3 x6 butteries. Now this is far rare even in Japan.
The only 2m SSB HT on the market shelf is NTS-220 by Nishi Musen in Kobe Japan.
The right photo is same shaped my NTS-620 for 6mSSB in Japanese Alps.
The weight is less than 300g including UM-3 x4 butteries and 1W output.
http://www.nishimusen.co.jp/nts220/nts220.htm
NTS-220 covers full JA 2mBand(144-146MHz) with PLL circuit controlled by buttons.
The former models NTS-200 and NTS-210 are controlled by a thumbwheel switch like LS-202.
Since career suppression and sideband suppression are important factors for SSB transmission, DSB or transmission by Quansheng is not the solution of the SSB-QSO.
73, JI1TLL, Jun
I agree that the Quansheng DSB is not the solution, but in the spirit of amateur radio and experimentation, it is pretty interesting! I have used it successfully on a few activations now, and I am impressed that it works at all.
But my preference will remain to just take the FT-817nd and a 3 element Yagi, since this does perform far better, as well as being my main HF station.
The exotic Japanese SSB handhelds are very exciting, but out of my reach.
73
