The Quansheng UV-K5 and K6 (or K5(8) or K5(99) depending on your retailer and region)* is an amazing radio with interesting features compared to other similar price point models. It retails for between $30-$40 USD, compared to the average Baofeng UV-5R which retails for $20-$30. What's interesting about this radio is its dot-matrix LCD display. Compared to radios like the UV-5R, which have segmented displays, this radio actually has a complete dot matrix, similar to a computer screen but without color. In addition, the K5 has a programmable flash, which allows for custom firmwares (CFWs). Also, this radio has a variety of hardware modifications that can be performed to extend capabilities, such as enabling HF scanning, transmitting CW, etc.
This radio is great because it allows the tinkerer to experiment with hardware and software mods to extend usefulness. I tried a handful of these myself, including a mod to extend the range of scannable frequencies and another mod to increase the number of programmable channels from 200 to 999. Besides the capabilities themselves, these mods taught me all about microsoldering/surface-mount soldering, a skill which I previously was not strong at. However, I should note that these mods were really challenging due to the small scale of the components involved, so it's definitely not a great beginner soldering project. I also tried a ton of CFWs, my personal favourites being the Egzumer mod and the IJV mod. These mods add features such as waterfall displays and new modes of demodulation, as well as improving ease of use.
*In this article I refer to all of these models collectively as the K5. They all have pretty much the same hardware components, but are packaged differently.
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Full radio specs on RigPix database (UV-K5)
Full radio specs on RigPix database (UV-K6 or K5(8) or K5(99))