Talkpod A36SE Solid Radio is a well thought out little radio with a large clear display and an easily learned user interface.

KB5BEK: These radios have gotten some bad press online. However, I was pleasantly surprised at every turn.

This is a solidly built little radio that feels substantial in your hand. The radio is easily "unlocked" from GRMS/FRS use only and easily programs in the ham bands as well as FRS/GMRS. The user interface is intuitive and the setup using Chirp was easy.

Transmitter power into a non reactive 50 ohm load was 5.0 watts on 2 meters and 5.1 watts on 70 cm. Power into the short antenna provided was 4.1 watts at 3.5 swr on 2 meters and 3.9 watts at a 3.7 swr on 70 centimeters. There were no measurable spurious harmonics on either band.

The reciever sensitivity was a pretty consistent -130 db on all bands tested.

There have been internet reports of unacceptable spurious harmonics with this radio. We did not find that in our testing. For milliseconds after you hit the PTT button there are multiple harmonics almost as strong as the primary but by the second sweep of the VNA the spectrum was clear with all harmonics at 50 db down or lower by our measurements.

This is a well thought out little radio with a large clear display and an easily learned user interface. I have mine set up to produce NOAA weather with a short push on user defined button one and FM broadcast on long push. I programmed user defined button 2 to scan with a short push and monitor with a long push.

I was pleasantly surprised by it.