I have received the following in an email from the Yahoo “Wouxun Users” Group.
I must say, it is the first I have heard of this alleged fault and I have not experienced any problems myself. Has anyone else had any issues with the Wouxun handies?
"It has been reported that ALL Wouxun HTs have an issue with their NVRAM
chips. Many units have failed to hold their settings, due to a poor
quality chip. If your radio loses its settings, defaults to Chinese
language, etc. It is this bug.
All radios have this chip, and are susceptible to eventually developing
this issue.
As our radios age, they will become more likely to develop this bug."
The email is unsigned, but it appears to come from the Administrator of the Yahoo Group.
Anyone who deals with Chinese goods should be aware of the following truism…
“Cheap, Chinese, Quality: pick any two.”
The only quality cheap products Chinese companies produce reliably are spam and hack attempts! Sadly things nobody wants but available in unlimited quantities from China.
My Chinese made Yaesu products appear bomb proof. They were significantly more expensive than the Wouxun, Baofeng, Anytone radios.
I have to report that I had lunch with the family in Chinatown Manchester yesterday and enjoyed all three. So this particular truism would appear to be false.
Hmmm. Well, despite all the witty replies I have yet to hear from anyone who has actually encountered the alleged problem! I certainly haven’t, and I have had two Wouxun handies for about 3 years. Even if they did fail now, I think I would feel that I’d had my money’s worth!
The same applies to the AnyTone 5189 4m “mobile” FM transceiver. Lynchy has stopped selling them because of “quality control problems”. However, Nevada still has them in stock. I have never had any trouble with mine in the two years I’ve had it … which is more than can be said for the modified Philips PMRs that I used previously!
In reply to G3NYY:
Hi Walt,
A US distributor wrote that stuff to justify changing the brands he stocks. It seems that his relationship with Wouxun fell apart so he had a dummy spit.
Is it all true? Maybe. Dunno. It will soon be considered established fact as the links to the original dumping break and it gets repeated over and over.
A lot of “name” brands are made in China. The difference between their stuff and other Chinese stuff is better quality control (usually). The cost is much lower for the “names” but not necessarily for us.
Locally made Chinese food is rarely as good as the real stuff in China. The Chefs change the ingredients to use local supplies and try to blend in with local tastes. Can you get fresh water beetles at the local?
If not buying one of the big three brands (they know who they are) I would rather buy a Chinese rig than one from anywhere else.
Dunno. I won mine in a QSL card contest at the Dallas Hamfest in 2012. It has been working properly since the day I figured out how to use it. I have not been dissappointed, nor have I had any problems with it. But if I do, I have certainly gotten far more value than I paid for.
I have also had my Wouxon for 3 years and it has (and continues) to perform faultlessly. I know many people with these HTs and no one has told me of this problem.
As with all mass produced items, it is more likely that there has been a batch of bad components (Kenwood has experienced this with filters in some of their TS-2000 rigs - so it’s not only Chinese systems that can be affected).
The apparent comment that ALL Wouxon systems ARE affected is, it would seem, a lie - the reason for such an untruth being perpetrated or where it comes from, I will leave to your own conclusions.
In short the Wouxon and the HTs that followed from other Chinese manufacturers have enabled new licensees around the world, to get on the air quicker than they otherwise would be able to do, given the price of equipment from the “big 4”. That being said Yaesu Musen have recently released a simple, cheap HT - perhaps because of the competition or perhaps simply by the fact that manufacturing costs have reduced due to larger volumes of systems being produced out of China forcing component prices down?
