In message , John Davis
writes
On 5/19/2015 4:11 PM, Michael Black wrote:

Anyone can buy those things, so when they find an empty frequency, "why
not use it?". ANd then that empty frequency turns out to be a ham band.

I don't know what the intent of these things are. Are they just cheap
ham walkie talkies, or is the major market elsewhere? If they start
making differnet versions, that will raise the cost.

Michael


You are correct on everything.. Yes. if they make different versions
costs will rise.. If they are honest about a dollar (or less).

But the concern of folks in this thread is not that a radio marketed
for HAM might get used on GMRS/FRS (or worse yet a government
frequency) so much as the fact that a fairly decent radio could be
banned because of folks doing that or... That folks will buy it for
that and mess up the ham bands.. or both.

Also Amazon sells them.. ANYONE can buy off Amazon (Provided they have
a way to pay) They do not make any effort to verify you are licensed.

And we already have many dealers of radio gear who have been "Raided"
by the FCC for selling ham gear to folks who have no intention of
getting a ham license.... EVER.. (10 meter gear re-tuned in some cases,
or capable of tuning 11 meters).

In the UK, the general public seems to be little interest in making
direct contact via radio.

After a long battle, we eventually got legal CB in 1981 (40 adjacent 4W,
UK-specific (spec UK/81), FM-only channels, immediately below the 10m
band).

About 20 years later, this was followed up with an additional 40 4-W FM
CEPT channels on the FCC frequencies (yes - a total of 80 legal
channels!) so we could harmonise with the rest of Europe.
A couple of years ago, 12W pep SSB was legalised on the 'FCC' channels.

We also have 8 500mW 'PMR446' channels around 446MHz (same type of
equipment as the FCC FRS service).

Although I live only about 25 miles west of the centre of London, I
can't say that I hear much activity on any of these frequencies (not
that I spend much time monitoring them). I believe that places like
garden centres and shopping malls do sometimes use PMR 446, but I never
hear them at home. As the legal PMR 446 equipment is very cheap, and
probably 'does the job' adequately, there's probably little reason to
want use the more versatile (and somewhat higher-powered) Baofeng (and
similar) equipment. However, although I rarely use it, my UV-3R does
seem to work very well on 2m and 70cm.
--
Ian