So I’ve had the KST V6  for three days now and I find myself really liking it. I’ve been comparing it to my Yaesu VX-7r and I know it’s not a fair comparison of a quad band against the monoband V6.

Transmit works very well. I can hit repeaters on the order of roughly 20 miles away without issue. I can hit a repeater in Fall River, MA on 5W without any scratchiness in the signal.

The radio was a bit of a bear to configure but once I got the Chinese to English manual translated into standard U.S. English I had no problems. You can see if you follow the tags that I created a quick reference guide to programming.

Another thing I like about the radio is it’s size. It’s almost 150g lighter than the magnesium bodied Yaesu. But it is all plastic.

Another thing I wish it had is a keypad back light. I have to take mine apart and see if the keypad has any translucence. If it does I’ll mount some smd LED’s and tie them to the display LED’s. The reason I even noticed it is at night, I had the radio in the charging stand and the indicator LED was lit in red. That red casts across the keys and lights them nicely.

Another mod I might do is throw a cap across the speaker leads. Even when the volume is turned very low there’s an audible click when the audio comes on. Capacitors block DC and allow AC to pass. Audio is an AC signal.

BTW, the TYT-800 is the exact same radio. Had I known about TYT, KST, Baofeng and Wuoxon when I bought my Yaesu I probably would have gone with one of those. But I’m sort of glad I have the Yaesu. It’s completely indestructible.

In the end though, I’m amused that the Chinese are starting to eat the lunch of the Japanese manufacturers of radio gear. And I’m also interested that the barrier to entry to amateur radio has now been demolished when you can get a handheld for anywhere between $30 and $100 now. So I’d give the KST V6 a solid three out of five stars. A solid buy.