Anyone use rugged radios

obullfish said:
Provide a link please. Can’t find them that cheap myself.
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BigSouth said:
Yeah, I don’t see them that cheap either. Maybe just the antenna or just a battery, but not the whole thing.
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rockcity said:
X2. The battery on Amazon is $30 but that’s about it. Maybe I’m not a search guru to find it cheaper.
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https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio-Black/dp/B007H4VT7A

$28 shipped

You can't get them in pink for that price, though.
 
So i dont know anything about radios. Whats the advantage of one of these vs a walkie talkie
 
shawn said:
The Rugged brand one is just a rebadged Baofeng. Looks the same, works the same, just blue instead of black.

Rugged does not make radios.
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I get it. I buy tools from Harbor Freight. Same idea. I can’t vouch for quality of either radio. I just know there are race teams that’ll vouch for quality of Rugged and their customer service. I’ve honestly never used mine... hence the selling it cheap.
 
shawn said:
Not quite. This is more like "I didn't buy a Dodge, mine says Sterling on the grille".
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What I mean is buy the cheaper and consider it disposable. Rugged’s sales pitch includes the programming, warranty, and available accessories.
 
As a ham I had people asking me about the el cheapo baofengs .... so when I ran a cross some on Wish.com for 27 bucks shipped, I figured it would be worth playing with for that much.
Gotta admit, lotta bang for the buck for a dual band 5 watt ht.
And as you can see, the only difference is the name ..... you can get the colors from baofeng also ( I think ). Even camo.


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Matt BTW - dig around the RR site a bit and you'll see they do have better radios .... but price goes up, fast.
 
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BigSouth said:
What I mean is buy the cheaper and consider it disposable. Rugged’s sales pitch includes the programming, warranty, and available accessories.
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I wouldn't assign too much value to the programming. They're just going to fill the radio up with commercial mobile "desert racing" frequencies that you can't use around here.

And if anything happens to the radio, you're going to have to ship it back to rugged. It'll cost you as much in shipping to get a replacement as the radio is worth.

The Vertex Standard/Yaesu radios are better built, and more what you'd expect from a commercial grade HT, but you can break a bunch of the Baofeng/Ruggeds for the price delta.
 
BigSouth said:
Knock off, :shaking: figures.

Maybe they’ll ship it with my next order of Foakley’s and Folex watch.
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Those aren't knockoffs.
Baefong is rugged's supplier.

If you will buy 200 (or maybe 250 - I cant remember) at a time you can get them for down around $19 each and have any name you want applied to them.

Somewhere in the wild world are 3 prototypes bearing the ECORS name, and no guts. They shipped those for free.

But you are right the only way to get that premium is to provide world class service. Of course when you have a 4x multiple you can give 2 replacements away for free to every customer and still profit.
 
I’ve run Rugged Radios in my race car(s) for years. The products have always been great, I’m sure everyone makes great radios nowadays though. The service is what has really differentiated them for me. But I work with them on more than just radios (safety equipment, gps) so I’m in contact with them pretty frequently.
 
@shawn and @Ron , I appreciate the insight. Got a buddy on here that says he can program my Rugged to talk to everybody else’s walkie. That’d be the trick if you ask me. I’ll just keep mine for myself.
 
BigSouth said:
@shawn and @Ron , I appreciate the insight. Got a buddy on here that says he can program my Rugged to talk to everybody else’s walkie. That’d be the trick if you ask me. I’ll just keep mine for myself.
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That's correct. They can even be programmed with the privacy codes, but each channel+code must be programmed as a separate channel on the Boefeng/Rugged, so you lose some of the versatility over a regular FRS/GMRS radio.
 
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