The Anytone D878UVii DMR Plus is a 2m/70cm handheld transceiver sporting 7W 2m and 6W 70cm transmitter power output. It is an excellent choice as an 2m/70cm amateur radio handheld transceiver for FM and DMR Plus. And you can work the world on the DMR Plus net which is busy and contacts can be had in minutes via a hotspot.
It has a small screen and keyboard for channel details and more is displayed in DMR mode. The frequency can be manually entered via the keyboard or can be programmed into the transceiver via a Windows program and code plug transferred to the transceiver via the supplied programming cable.
The software for programming the code plug is only available for Windows. I had an issue obtaining the driver for Windows 11 which took about an hour to solve when first getting the transceiver. So, be careful that you obtain the required driver without downloading viruses!
For operation in the 2m/70cm amateur radio bands a license is necessary and one needs to upload the license to https://radioid.net for DMR to work correctly on the net.
It has a PTT, 3 programming buttons (P1, P2 and P3) two knobs for channel changing and volume. It has a keyboard for entering details for channels, CTS tones, power output, frequency, microphone levels and so on via its menus displayed on the small screen. The PTT switch is a little stiff but this can be solved by plugging in an external microphone and speaker, and the Anytone CPL-05 is fully compatible.
The Anytone D878UVii Plus has a capacity of 500,000 DMR contacts, so plenty to make it future-proof for holding the complete worldwide DMR database for a few years yet. Currently the full DMR database is at about 250,000.
The Anytone transceiver is one of the only transceivers that is compatible with Bluetooth.
I’ve worked 4 repeaters and 3 with full quieting two of these twenty miles away from my QTH in line of sight. And 1 about 7 miles away from my QTH and all of these transmitting through 1 brick wall.
An replacement antenna can be used and I choose a Diamond SRJ77 which increases the power radiated by about 20% and is available for about £30.
