Retevis RT84 Dual Band DMR & FM Radio Review
I have been looking for a cheap DMR radio for a while now and came across this RT84 from Retevis. As you know I am a huge fan of Retevis products, ever since I bought the Ailunce HD1 I showed a keen interest in their products as the quality of that radio was incredible! The RT84 has 3000 Channels & 10000 Contacts. This radio also has a record function!
I wanted something cheap and reliable that I could take away on Holidays or camping etc.. This seemed to fit the bill perfectly. It took a couple of weeks to arrive directly from Retevis and was well packaged, I quite like the design of the radio. It has a really nice large speaker on the front that sounds very good, definitely one of the better ones I have heard. One thing I am not keen on is you cannot turn the audio down enough, even on the lowest volume it is still quite loud, this can probably be fixed with a firmware update.
The build quality is very good too! I have taken this radio everywhere and dropped it several times and it just keeps on working, Retevis have mastered these radio designs now and this is no exception.
The radio also has a large colour screen that can be kept on permanently in the settings, this is how I have mine set as I find it doesn’t drain the battery much and makes it easier to see at a distance though it will light up when the radio receives a transmission in any case.
The radio has three programmable buttons on the side of the radio that can be programmed using the free software found on the Retevis website. We also have a rubber PTT button and I like this a lot and feels really nice to press.
The radio comes with a 2000mah battery and I find it lasts reasonably well although not as well as its older brother the HD1. On the top of the radio we have the volume switch knob and the channel selector knob, standard affair really.
One quite strange feature is the charger base light flickers green and red whilst charging, I contacted Retevis about this but this is and not a defect, just quirky 😉
The manual that comes with the radio is very well written and found it easy to navigate to the relevant pages, although the radio is quite simple to use and didn’t find I need to refer to the manual at all really, I did a video on youtube showing how to program the RT3S but the same applies to other Retevis DMR radios.
I find the receive very sensitive on this radio and is on par with the HD1 although there are not as many features as the HD1, it’s a really good entry level DMR radio and would work perfectly with a hotspot for example, this is how I use this radio and works extremely well, this is one of the things I love about DMR and Retevis, you can get into DMR for very little money and it’s a fantastic mode and is by far my favourite.
Some of the specs of this radio are:
Output Power:5W
U/V136-174MHZ/400-480MHZ
3000Channels
250 Group and each group can have 32 contact member
2000mAh Battery.
Also come with these accessories as standard.
1 x RT84 digital two way radio
1 x Antenna
1 x Battery
1 x Adapter
1 x Charger
1 x Belt Clip
1 x Hand Strap
1 x User Manual
1 x Earpiece
If you are looking for a cheap and reliable Dual Band DMR & FM radio then you really can’t go wrong with the Retevis RT84 Currently the radio is available from Retevis direct for $86.99 and for that you really can’t go wrong! I have owned this radio now for a couple of months and had zero issues with it and can highly recommend it.
For more information or to purchase this radio please visit the Retevis website here.
Thanks very much for reading!
Matthew
M6CEB