Hiradio UV-88 Multi-Band Ham Radio

Great for hobbyist!!!

OK this is great radio UNLESS your an amateur. You just don't buy Hiradio if your brand new to the hobby. It's decades of experience: in the 1970s i programmed Uniden Bearcat Scanners pretty easy but it took time. Then I got an Icom in the 80s and it took a while to figure out. Then brought back to the hobby I purchased a Boefang Scanner took weeks to figure out how to program but cheap as shoot. Now I purchased this Hiradi uv 88. It takes a while to figure out...like some buyer he said just has to walkway from it. Because it isn't a radio, it's a hobby. Great radio guys figured out numerous thing in the last few months how to use it and now I am experimenting with mw and sw worth every penny and if if you need help asked me a question

0:03

Decent quality radio with learning curve.

This Hiradio Y23UV-88 multi band ham radio has a lot of potential. It just has a learning curve to work through.

It has a durable, well made case. When in hand, the grip is good, and it feels firm and solid. It also has a substantial weight to it. It comes with an attached battery case, including a charging stand/cradle and cord, and a clip-on piece that goes onto a pocket or belt.

The main antenna is decent, but rather tall at almost 7” in height. The on/off/volume nob works as expected, no complaints. And in between, is the short/medium/long wave FM antenna. The radio is both capable of transmitting and receiving, and it is able to operate in AM and FM modes.

The display screen is a bit small, but is still readable.

The keypad works nicely, as expected.

The right side of the radio contains a covered type-c charging port, along with an earpiece and speaker jack, which is also covered by a flap that is held in place by a small flat head screw. This can be handy when you are in the wild, as debris won’t be able to clog up the ports, leaving them clean.

The left side of the radio contains the PTT button which operates as the transmit, and exit button when in the menu. Below that is both side keys: 1 and 2.

My only problem is that the software is difficult to navigate. I’ve spent a lot of effort studying the manual, and going through trial-and-error. It took some time before I was able to understand how the radio operates. The radio looks to be promising, however learning how to use it, especially if you are in a time crunch, can prove to be tedious. Definitely read and study the manual. So far I’ve found a few channels that cone in clearly, including one that plays classical music, of all things!

So like I said, the quality of the radio itself is very good. Getting it to work takes a lot of time and intention. I think it would be great for a tinkerer.

Well built, the manual and menu's could be better

I would actually tend to think my rating is more on the 3 1/2 side, but because it is well built, a good palm size, and looks good I upped it to 4.

I got this for my husband, who really likes it, but he says there is some difficulty in the programming and the set up is a bit more cumbersome than he'd like. The instruction manual is limited and the menu's could be more intuitive. But like I said, he says it is well built and seems a solid piece of equipment. Maybe if you are a bit more techy than him you'll get things faster lol.

Near impossible to set-up and poor antenna/signal quality out of the box

I had high hopes for this radio but I cannot stress enough to stay away from this. The menu functionality is extremely hard to navigate, I’ve yet been able to figure out how to program any favorites - I don’t think you can. There is no apparent ‘back’ button when navigating the menus and some of the menus split between Mandarin and English.

I tried to download software of equivalent rebrand models to attempt programming this radio with a computer but was unable to find any cord where my computers would recognize the radio. To test it, I tried listening in on some emergency stations and a major airport within about 3 miles from me and I was only able to hear very broken chatter. The radio itself seems fairly robust to the touch but as soon as you power it on you realize it’s simply too difficult to use, program, or trust.

This is a fantastic radio.

This radio is great. It has very wide receive. I would not try to take transmitting outside of the UHF/VHF band though. It will not be clean. This model does not include GPS, SW loop antennas, or a programming cable.

From a value perspective though, this radio cannot be beat. As a matter of fact, it seems to offer near exact performance and features of its bigger brother the UV98/rt880. It actually has some features that can be preferable. It's physically smaller, and while the screen is smaller and more simplistic, it is readable and always on. Aside from that, it does not do radio switching when moving between bands, like it's bigger brother. This tells me it is using the same receiver for all bands. That said, it seems to receive well.

While the radio does not come with the cable, and can be programmed from the face, cable programming is recommended. The CPS software is rough around the edges, and you have to search for it, but it is functional. The software is nearly identical to that of the larger 880/UV98. There are only a few fields to change if moving data via csv files across them.

A lot of the features are tucked into the menus, so you are left to assign the key functions for them as you wish. There is cool stuff there, like spectrum scan/monitor though.

In short, this is the thing the Quansheng UV-K5 wishes it was.

I would certainly recommend this radio, almost moreso than the UV-98/rt880. This radio is very near everything that that one is, just a little short of it.

Might Be Worth The Effort

I have about 8 HT radios, but this Hiradio model promised enough interesting features that I thought I'd give it a try. The first thing to know is that it's a lot of work to set up, so it wouldn't be ideal for someone new to amateur radio.

It's not supported by CHIRP programming, and I couldn't get it to connect with the Hiradio software from their website. However, this is the same radio as the Radtel RT-860, so I tried the software from their site. It did work, but was very basic. I set up the basic radio parameters I wanted, but I couldn't get it to upload a saved .csv channel file, so I ended up having to enter each frequency manually into the program. However, it did save them successfully to the radio.

Figuring out radio operation has been a trial and error experience. The included manual was pretty much useless, so I referred to numerous YouTube videos for assistance. I still have more to do, but here are some impressions so far:

The radio feels solidly constructed

It actually does receive CB radio

The radio has surprisingly good sound

Sensitivity on AM/FM is quite good, and there's no frequency drift like on other cheap radios

It seems that this radio does everything it's supposed to do - the problem is just trying to figure out how to get it to do it. It's important to note that although it will pick up HF frequencies, it requires a second antenna to do so, which is not included (I purchased the CB whip antenna in my photo separately). I've walked away frustrated from this radio several times but keep coming back because it has the potential to be what I was looking for - a dual-band HT with multiband reception including AM, FM, weather, CB and amateur HF.

Edit: I should've mentioned that it doesn't include a programming cable for use with computers, but none of these types of radios seem to do so. It works with a standard Baofeng-type cable. Also, although it has the capability to program a channel name (Channel Alias), I have yet to figure out how to display it, which is disappointing.

ODM of iRadio UV-88. Super sturdy. Multi band. Great for emergency backup.

ODM of iradio uv88 and priced the same

Nice metal casing…

A step above the cheapest Chinese radios…

One of the pictures says it has GPS but then none of the listing text says GPS

But there is GPS is the menu, but no way to confirm it has locked onto GPS or if it’s doing anything… very likely it is using firmware that think it has GPS while hardware not having GPS…

But it’s a radio… likely not the cleanest signals, but might be better than the worst ones… it does have a lot bands more than the cheapest radios… so like would be a good one to keep in the car just in case…

Good value for the money, but same value as iRadio’s own version of it… not sure why this particular rebrand needs to exist…

Likely ok radio quality for emergency use and very sturdy like it’d be very difficult to break this…

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J. Grant

December 5, 2025

Messy out of the box, but workable.

First off, right out of the box, this radio was a mess.

Not physically - the unit itself feels very solidly constructed. The battery, antenna, and belt clip all assembled without issue. It powered on without issue.

No, the mess is trying to program it.

No CHIRP support, and probably never will be. But there IS a way to find and use programming software. You have to understand that this is a clone/rebrand. "Hiradio Y23UV-88" is, it turns out, a rebranded "iRadio UV-88." They weren't even clever in the rebrand. But wait! The iRadio UV-88, it turns out, is a rebranded Radtel RT860! Exact same radio! Are you amazed? I am amazed.

And none of these radios are CHIRP compatible.

By digging around, I was able to find the CPS software for the Radtel RT860. Although you can apparently hack together a USB-C cable to program this radio, my regular USB-C cables didn't work. My Baofeng 2-pin cable did not work. Amusingly, my Radtel 2 pin connector did not work. However, my Abbree 2-pin cable worked fine.

The CPS software that also worked is... awful. Possibly coded by early Estruscans on stone computers. I was able to view the packaged default programming for the radio, which included a bunch of frequencies I, as a radio nerd, have never heard of. NBD. I exported it to CSV, and edited the CSV to what I wanted. And the CSV refused to upload to the software. OK. I programmed it by hand on the comp.

Be forewarned that all channels manually programmed will default to Wide band, including CB channels. CB works better in Narrow Band. There is also an automatic tail tone, which can be disabled.

I have disabled the radio "voice" several times in the software, to no avail. It does stick if you disable it locally on the radio. Quick tip: After making changes on the local menu, hit the 2nd side ptt button to exit the menu with saved changes.

As for actual performance:

I was able to attach a CB antenna, and surprisingly, this radio gets really good RX/TX on CB. On UHF, I was able to communicate simplex for about 5 miles, and hit a repeater 10 miles away, again with excellent audio quality. I really was impressed by the audio quality on multiple bands, including CB and GMRS. Although it says the radio outputs 5 watts, I was getting slightly more than that on 462.5000.

So why am I giving this 3 stars? Simple: Programming this radio, compared to many others, is an absolute nightmare. Attempting to program it on the radio local interface is like trying to hack through an unfamiliar jungle with a spoon. The only available software to program it from a computer is unwieldy and outdated. The radio is finicky about what programming cables it will accept.

If you're a radio expert, and want a challenging radio that provides some features other radios do not, this might be a good purchase. If, however, you're like most people, the extra steps and hoops to jump through on this particular clone of clone aren't worth the time and effort. And do NOT buy this radio as a gift for your radio nerd friends unless you REALLY think they'll like it.

Great build quality, but falls flat

Let's start with the pros; great build quality, literally feels good in hand and solid with a very bright LED screen that makes it easy to read. Button layout is great, it's got USB charging and cradle charging. It's got an FM receiver that works fairly well, you can actually listen to the local radio stations, at least it receives these stations a lot better than other inexpensive radios.

Now on to the cons; the UI is not very intuitive, the lack of a back button is frustrating. The reception was relatively marginal with the supplied antenna, I was having a hard time picking up signal from the control tower, even though I was literally within eyesight of it. Some of the menus feature both English and Chinese which is a little befuddling. And the supplied instruction manual is relatively basic.

Functionality of this radio is hampered by these things. And then to top it off there's no chirp compatibility so I imagine programming this thing is going to be a pain. Which is unfortunate because the radio itself feels so good in the hand and of such high quality it's a shame that it falls flat.

Mostly good hardware, terrible firmware

When I first touched this radio I was impressed as it did feel solid. Alas, when I began testing it I was quickly disappointed. Here is a summary:

PROS: the radio feels very nice, strong yet slim, big battery, very small but decent screen (reasonably visible in bright sunlight), IP rating of 67 and solid feeling beltclip, USB-C charging - all that is very good. Now the bad,

CONS: no way to program the radio including no CHIRP. Since that HiRadio is a copy of a Iradio which itself is a copy of a Radtel - there is really no software adequate to program it. HiRadio has no customer support at all. The user manual covers the basic menu functions and that's it (a lot of features/bugs are not documented at all). The menus are not intuitive and the radio lacks a real "back" button. The SW/MW capability must be an afterthought as there is no SW/MW antenna shipping with the radio (see contents photo; besides, combining a HAM HT with a broadcast receiver is a silly idea anyway). The antenna shipped with this radio is terrible. Some of the menus mix Chinese and English, which tells you all you need to know about the work put into the firmware. I did test the airband (after manually setting the radio to AM) and it was pretty terrible. I did not even try the SSB

A funny feature of this radio is that on menu 1 then entry 30 you are shown a tiny QR code to get to the manual. And, sure enough, when you scan it it points you to what looks like a 404 page in Chinese (see photo). When translated, the text says "The number of visits to the QR code has been used up and the cannot be viewed please contact the QR code maker for upgrade process" (!)

Bottom line: this feels like a Frankenstein radio - some hardware and firmware quickly put together and sold for a way too high price. Unless you really like this model for some specific reason, I recommend you stay away from it!