The MT1000s are great for the Ham band, no mods necessary. I have several, and have all of the repeaters in SW Florida programmed in. They work great.
These are also Part 80 certified, so they are also great as marine radios. Since you can skip channel assignments, you can program in the US channels and have them read the right channel number on the display. I have all US marine channels programmed into a couple for boating, and use channels 91-97 to program in all of the NOAA weather channels.
A neat trick on these is to use 2 tone on the weather channels, using a long tone 1050Hz, and they will act as alert radios for weather, staying silent until the alert tone goes off. We are on the water a lot down here, and they come in very handy.
They are cheap, VERY rugged, and have great sensitivity.
John
AA4TX