What do you think about this?? Amazon sells a great little Baofeng, the FT-888s, I had to buy one to check it out - its a 16 channel UHF only 5 watt tiny little rig. Heres the problem and although its not technically a Amateur issue, it may be. These radios are DIRT cheap, they sell for about $16 each and Amazon sells them in multi-packs of up to 20 units, they come pre-programmed with a hodgepodge of commercial and GMRS frequencies - specifically 462.125, .225, .325, .425, .525, .625, .725, .825, & .925 plus 463.025, .125, .225, .525, - 450.225, 460.325 and 469.945. I can not find that these are FCC type accepted for part 90, so theyre not legal as shipped and theyre not part 95 accepted (although 462.725 is GMRS Ch 8). If you read the reviews, most of these are being sold and used as shipped as a FRS replacement, some are re-programmed to FRS frequencies at think theyre legal, (theyre NOT, but I dont really care), some knowingly program them to Amateur frequencies and become pirates, but the scariest scenario, the just pick random frequencies and program 16 channels, could be a repeater input or output, weak signal frequency. whatever. Shouldnt Amazon mark these with a warning? Unless Im missing something, these can not be used without an Amateur license. I think they should be marked as such - Amazon says theyre checking in to it. They are selling these things by the dozen (literally) - W2GTX
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 14:45:08 +0000
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