Discussion: FCC Advisory on Two-Way VHF/UHF Radios

[kayn1n32008]

People, businesses and agencies included, are tired of paying Motorola prices, plain and simple.

Lots of other quality radio manufacturers other than Motorola. Kenwood, Icom, Tait, Vertex(yes owner by Motorola but not priced like Motorola)

It’s cheap *** businesses and cheap *** hams that continue to keep up demand. When these cheap *** radios end up in the hands of cheap *** businesses, they cause havoc. They have zero clue how to program them and don’t care what frequencies they are on. They also pullouts the RF spectrum from DC to daylight.

I honestly have a feeling that there are plenty of people here who would still be pissed off at the CCRs even if they were all FCC certified, simply because they aren't Motorola, Kenwood, or Icom.

If they were properly tested they would not actually be certified because the vast majority of these garbage radios would not actually pass certification testing to begin with, with out a major redesign with actual filtering added, and the ability to FPP out of the box removed.

If they actually produced a legit part 90 radio that was not a POS, did not sound like a POS, and was not exactly what we expect a $30 POS to be, I would gladly abandon Kenwood and Vertex. But I won’t abandon Kenwood and Vertex because Baoturd and the other CCRs don’t hold a stick in the wind to the quality of even the lowest quality Kenwood or Vertex radio that I own.

I actually use my radios, and don’t baby them. My old Vertex portable(VX-231) sat in my radio pocket filling with snow, ice, and various types of trees branches and needles/leaves on my survey cruiser vest in -25c, in the snow and ice tramping through the bush and muskeg for 8-12Hrs a day. It would sit in the radio pocket and get wet in the rain, or bake in that same pocket in the sun in the summer. I never lost it. Ever. It never missed a beat. Ever. Why buy a $30 throw away radio over and over when my $200 Vertex radio worked for ~8+ years in an abusive environment that a Baoturd would fold up and go home on day one.

let’s face it, most hams won’t ever be ‘hiking’ or mountaineering or out on a lake with their $30 Baoturd. they will be riding around in their power chair doing events in good weather.



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[mmckenna]

People, businesses and agencies included, are tired of paying Motorola prices, plain and simple. What hasn't really been mentioned in this thread, is that there is also a huge influx of businesses resorting to the bubble pack GMRS as well. It isn't just the CCRs. It all comes down to price.

I agree on the inflated Motorola pricing. That's always been an issue.

One of the big issues is that with the internet it is really easy to go on line, search for "walkie talkie" and come up with a whole bunch of sites that will sell you a radio, no questions asked.

Businesses that are just looking for cheap radios will find these and will purchase them. Part of the problem is that they don't know what they are buying. They find a "walkie talkie" for a low price and buy it. Assumptions often are that if it's sold to consumers, there must not be any license required.
They get immediate satisfaction and move on with their busy days.

It's not -just- that they are cheap, but more they are "easy" and don't come with any annoying strings attached.

Yeah, the others are more expensive, but there's often a reason for that.
Better quality is a big part of that. As has been stated, proper filtering necessary to meet the FCC requirements, build quality, etc. all add up to additional costs.
Also, when you compare "dealer prices" to "list prices", there's a fair amount of mark up. Profit isn't a four letter word. Dealers are often small businesses and they need profits to survive.
Of course buying a Chinese radio from overseas saves you some money, but it doesn't really do anything to help small businesses.

The business owner up the street from me needed 6 radios for his store. He bought Baofengs. They work great for his purposes and cost him $10 a piece. What business owner would not go for a deal like that? It's fiscally responsible.

I think "fiscally responsible" and ignorant are two things that can often cooperate together. Sure, they are cheap, but if all they are looking at is the price, they are missing something. There's a reason we haven't replaced all our radios at work with CCR's.

As I also mentioned earlier in the thread, a local school district could buy 100 throw-away CCRs or more for the price of 1 Motorola radio. What would you do if you were in charge of the district's budget? It's a no brainer. They went with the CCRs.

Yep, those in charge of the budget often make decisions based only (or at least heavily weighted) on price. This is why radio guys get involved and try hard to keep their employers from buying low end radios that may not meet the FCC requirements.

People are not willing to pay exorbitant Motorola prices anymore, and in the day of the interwebs, Motorola no longer has the monopoly they once had. I honestly have a feeling that there are plenty of people here who would still be pissed off at the CCRs even if they were all FCC certified, simply because they aren't Motorola, Kenwood, or Icom.

There's a lot of reasons why Motorola is losing market share. Pricing is a big part of it.

And I'd agree, there are those that would complain even if the CCR's did actually meet FCC requirements, and not by running narrower than standard bandwidth or reduced power.
But that would drive the prices up and do a bit more to level the playing field.



I don't own one, and probably never will.
Yes, I've used them, and I was not at all impressed.
One of our remote sites had a few of them and were complaining about "radio system problems". I went through all three repeaters and got them working correctly. I resolved all the issues and made the system sound good on a couple of Kenwood radios.
The CCR's still sounded like crap. I was able to convince them to replace the CCR's with some decent radios. The customer is much happier and the system is working like it's supposed to.

CCR's are fine for hobbyists and amateurs. I don't have any problem if they are used correctly.

I'm not going to waste my money on one, though.

 

[AK9R]

Better quality is a big part of that. As has been stated, proper filtering necessary to meet the FCC requirements, build quality, etc. all add up to additional costs.

In my testing, which is geared towards a single issue, i.e. compliance with 97.307(e) regarding spurious emissions, a $25 Baofeng UV-5R is not compliant, but a $50 Anytone AT-3208 is compliant.

It doesn't take that much more money to get a better radio.

 

[kbroderick]

let’s face it, most hams won’t ever be ‘hiking’ or mountaineering or out on a lake with their $30 Baoturd. they will be riding around in their power chair doing events in good weather.

I know a fair number of people using Baofengs on motorcycles in plenty of less-than-ideal weather conditions (particularly working bicycle races). Mine is pretty much relegated to scanner duty at this point, but I've probably gotten it just as wet and just as snowy as I have the Kenwoods and Motorolas I've been issued as a ski coach, and it hasn't exhibited any weather-related issues.

So while I don't have the equipment to speak to spurious emissions, I can say that my personal experience—and that of a non-trivial number of people I know—is that the Baofengs will tolerate adverse weather conditions.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

People, businesses and agencies included, are tired of paying Motorola prices, plain and simple. What hasn't really been mentioned in this thread, is that there is also a huge influx of businesses resorting to the bubble pack GMRS as well. It isn't just the CCRs. It all comes down to price.

There used to be reasonable radios...I have a closet full of them. Ranger made the color dot business radios, Motorola had color dot/business radios, and all were very reasonably priced. There are still some off-brands out there that are reasonable, but you're still over $100 for most of them.

The business owner up the street from me needed 6 radios for his store. He bought Baofengs. They work great for his purposes and cost him $10 a piece. What business owner would not go for a deal like that? It's fiscally responsible.

As I also mentioned earlier in the thread, a local school district could buy 100 throw-away CCRs or more for the price of 1 Motorola radio. What would you do if you were in charge of the district's budget? It's a no brainer. They went with the CCRs.

People are not willing to pay exorbitant Motorola prices anymore, and in the day of the interwebs, Motorola no longer has the monopoly they once had. I honestly have a feeling that there are plenty of people here who would still be pissed off at the CCRs even if they were all FCC certified, simply because they aren't Motorola, Kenwood, or Icom.

Have any of these businesses or schools you have cited actually obtained an FCC license for these bargain radios? I have to wonder because there is little support for these radios such that the average consumer could not obtain a license and then properly program them. When I contacted AMCREST, I was given so much misleading information about licensing, "not required" programming, "use chirp",, that I believe their entire business model is built on wholesale distribution.

Nobody paying $10 or $30 per radio Is going to want to pay a frequency coordinator and FCC $400 to $500 to get a license, or a technician $30 per radio to set them up properly.

What you are describing is a wholly unregulated situation.

The unlicensed use of these radios is the tip of the iceberg.

If these companies want to be operating legally, and on the cheap, they should be buying MURS, 900 MHz ISM radios , or (sigh) FRS.

Whoever is leading them to make Baofeng purchases is giving them bad information. I will be kind and blame Amazon, but it does not help that knowledgeable licensed radio amateurs are complicit in marketing this rubbish,

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[Hans13]

In my testing, which is geared towards a single issue, i.e. compliance with 97.307(e) regarding spurious emissions, a $25 Baofeng UV-5R is not compliant, but a $50 Anytone AT-3208 is compliant.

It doesn't take that much more money to get a better radio.

I was thinking something similar. Some of the current Alinco/Anytone stuff, especially the Part 90 certified, seem pretty good. IMHO, they could bring a complete line of those to market around the $100 price point, or less, and spark some good competition for cleaner, durable radios. As far as I can tell, all of the recent Part 90 equipment from Alinco are Anytone models. I have no way to test them but have heard from radiomen that can that they are pretty clean and sound good enough.

 

[mmckenna]

Looking at Kenwood dealer pricing, there's some of their lower tier radios that get close to the ~$100 or so range. So it's possible to get some decent radios to the market in that neighborhood.

Issue would be, at least for amateurs, they are single band, no display, no FPP, add in the cost of software/cable, etc.
For business users, that's reasonable, but I'm sure someone will argue that.

 

[alcahuete]

Have any of these businesses or schools you have cited actually obtained an FCC license for these bargain radios? I have to wonder because there is little support for these radios such that the average consumer could not obtain a license and then properly program them. When I contacted AMCREST, I was given so much misleading information about licensing, "not required" programming, "use chirp",, that I believe their entire business model is built on wholesale distribution.

Nobody paying $10 or $30 per radio Is going to want to pay a frequency coordinator and FCC $400 to $500 to get a license, or a technician $30 per radio to set them up properly.

What you are describing is a wholly unregulated situation.

The unlicensed use of these radios is the tip of the iceberg.

If these companies want to be operating legally, and on the cheap, they should be buying MURS, 900 MHz ISM radios , or (sigh) FRS.

Whoever is leading them to make Baofeng purchases is giving them bad information. I will be kind and blame Amazon, but it does not help that knowledgeable licensed radio amateurs are complicit in marketing this rubbish,

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The businesses have definitely not. The school districts are using their existing licenses (the larger district has I'm sure close to 1000 radios). As far as programming, I couldn't tell you how they are accomplishing that. They did get the FCC certified CCRs for what it's worth. They actually have a pretty extensive setup, with repeaters, base units, etc. Very well done system.

You have to see it from their perspective though. After the radios, accessories, service agreements, etc., they're easily saving over $1 million, I'm sure way more than that. They're not using these things in police cars or fire trucks or mines or oil derricks. Aside from the bus radios, they're just used for communications around campus. The district would be crazy stupid out of their minds to go with one of the name brands, IMO.

Issue would be, at least for amateurs, they are single band, no display, no FPP, add in the cost of software/cable, etc. For business users, that's reasonable, but I'm sure someone will argue that.

I agree that something around that pricepoint would be reasonable. That's what they used to be. You could pick up the Rangers and cheap Motorolas in the sub $100 price range, but not far off. I remember some pairs of radios being $79 or so, of course with the license application included, that nobody actually did.

Personally, I love my Motorola gear. Love it! It has never let me down yet. But I also own a fleet of CCRs (the type accepted ones for ~$60) that I use for boating, off-roading, loaning to friends, etc. I wouldn't be so much a fan of one of my 7550e falling out of the boat and sinking into the lake, but a $60 CCR? Who cares. It's a throw-away radio.

And to be honest, my GD-77 has almost as hot a receiver as a 7550e, which is arguably the hottest receive on the market. And it actually handles desense as well if not better.

 

[AK9R]

If you are looking for a $100 dual-band handheld with FPP that's geared towards amateur radio, the Yaesu FT-4XR fits the description. Made in China. Definitely not Part 90. Clean on my spectrum analyzer. Programming it by hand is a little more straightforward than programming the $50 Anytone, but still not as easy as some amateur radios.

 

[AK9R]

Us radio folks talk a lot about the impact that Chinese radios have had, but that's not the only market where the Chinese are making in-roads.

Cheap, Chinese tools are making an impact, too. Here's how one U.S.-based manufacturer is responding:

 

[scanmanmi]

The FT-4XR looks interesting. My Baofeng came with $72 worth of accessories though. After having my high power I'm never going back to just 5 watts.

 

[Stretchman]

The simple and short answer to this is that we know now that these radios are software programmable, and that the only difference, aside from them being cheap, is that they are simply improperly programmed for ham radio use.

That is not something not fixable. We can do this at the firmware level, and if you think about, see exactly what these radios are actually capable of, and what they fail at. The other positive to this equation isthat we may very well end up with a programmable radio chip that we ourselves could build out better than the current offerings.

I think we're looking at this all wrong. I mean, isn't this what we're supposed to be trying to do?

 

[alcahuete]

Was out doing some Christmas shopping today at Wal-Mart when what to my wandering eyes should appear? A crapload of Baofengs, and no Moto gear.

Yep! My Wal-Mart is in the process of making the switch from the /\/\oto MURS radios to dual band BaoFengs. I talked to the Assistant GM out of pure curiosity, and he said it is a system-wide initiative, not just at this store. Previously, about 1 in 5 associates at my store had a radio, due to cost. The rest were paged via the PA as needed. Now, every single associate has a radio, right down to the folks in the back unpacking boxes. He said the only time the PA is ever used now is for paging customers, i.e. to Automotive or such, and they are even trying to eliminate that. System-wide initiative......

Bye bye Moto custom radio contract!

And to think, there are still people here who want to bury their heads in the sand and believe this is all about spectral impurity and not Mother /\/\ losing a ton of money. Time to wake up.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Was out doing some Christmas shopping today at Wal-Mart when what to my wandering eyes should appear? A crapload of Baofengs, and no Moto gear.

Yep! My Wal-Mart is in the process of making the switch from the /\/\oto MURS radios to dual band BaoFengs. I talked to the Assistant GM out of pure curiosity, and he said it is a system-wide initiative, not just at this store. Previously, about 1 in 5 associates at my store had a radio, due to cost. The rest were paged via the PA as needed. Now, every single associate has a radio, right down to the folks in the back unpacking boxes. He said the only time the PA is ever used now is for paging customers, i.e. to Automotive or such, and they are even trying to eliminate that. System-wide initiative......

Bye bye Moto custom radio contract!

And to think, there are still people here who want to bury their heads in the sand and believe this is all about spectral impurity and not Mother /\/\ losing a ton of money. Time to wake up.

I wonder if the WM stores could be bothered to put licensed frequencies in this ButtFangs?

Probably not which would mean they are using them illegally on the default frequencies.

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[ipfd320]

Kinda Funny--I was at the Walmart in Port St.Lucie a Couple of Hours Ago and they are Using These Radios

Motorola RM RMM 2050 Two Way Radio

How Do I Know--I Asked the Girl who was Packing Out the Isle if I Can See It after a Short Convo About Communications--so it Seems Not Every Store is Going to the Baeos yet-- but on a note there was a few Moto talk abouts on the shelf nothing else

 

[alcahuete]

Kinda Funny--I was at the Walmart in Port St.Lucie a Couple of Hours Ago and they are Using These Radios

Motorola RM RMM 2050 Two Way Radio

How Do I Know--I Asked the Girl who was Packing Out the Isle if I Can See It after a Short Convo About Communications--so it Seems Not Every Store is Going to the Baeos yet-- but on a note there was a few Moto talk abouts on the shelf nothing else

Yep! Mine was mixed. Still some Motos in use. The guy said that when the Motos break, they are being replaced with the Baofengs, and all new radios issued are Baofengs.

I wonder if the WM stores could be bothered to put licensed frequencies in this ButtFangs?

Yes, they were programmed to talk with the Moto MURS radios. Doesn't mean they aren't using them on other frequencies too, but at the least, they are programmed for MURS.

 

[jeatock]

I used to sell a plant <$200 'real radios'. Stole their business away from Mother because of price. No more, simply because the plant manager can buy a box of CCR's for the price of one 'real radio'. That is a difficult argument to counter.

Since the plant is not in a metro area nobody is close by to complain about RF purity. They can also self-program channels not on their license and nobody is the wiser.

Simple dollars and cents, and flexibility. WAAAY wrong, but can you blame them?

 

[jeatock]

And another issue

Last week I was informed of 'foreign' voices on one of my B&I repeaters. Late Friday I deduced that the offender was a licensed simplex user that had no doubt bought some CCR's. They simply punched in their frequency and CTCSS and started testing/jabbering about why these new %$#@ radios didn't work on their simplex system. They apparently had no clue that the CCR's came with a default 600 KHz amateur duplex split and that they were transmitting on a different frequency.

Their licensed frequency is 600 KHz away from the repeater input of a grade school repeater and uses the same CTCSS. Because they were listening to their own simplex frequency they had no clue my repeater was going active and the teachers and school busses heard every &#@& test.

The school was not impressed with the explicitly unpleasant language.

I plan on giving them a courtesy call Monday, but will probably decline to 'splain their issues beyond their CCR's transmitting on my frequency due to the default amateur split.

Anyone else have this problem?
.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Last week I was informed of 'foreign' voices on one of my B&I repeaters. Late Friday I deduced that the offender was a licensed simplex user that had no doubt bought some CCR's. They simply punched in their frequency and CTCSS and started testing/jabbering about why these new %$#@ radios didn't work on their simplex system. They apparently had no clue that the CCR's came with a default 600 KHz amateur duplex split and that they were transmitting on a different frequency.

Their licensed frequency is 600 KHz away from the repeater input of a grade school repeater and uses the same CTCSS. Because they were listening to their own simplex frequency they had no clue my repeater was going active and the teachers and school busses heard every &#@& test.

The school was not impressed with the explicitly unpleasant language.

I plan on giving them a courtesy call Monday, but will probably decline to 'splain their issues beyond their CCR's transmitting on my frequency due to the default amateur split.

Anyone else have this problem?
.

I am devious enough that I would like to see that licensee become the FCC poster child for "don't be that dumbass using CCR's".

I would make a recording. Give them a warning letter without revealing what you know about the radio "malfunction", then let it happen again (on recording) and then call the FCC to "sort it out" using your tapes and the tools they have, an NAL. Otherwise we continue to have CCR proponents claiming "all is well".

 

[alcahuete]

I am devious enough that I would like to see that licensee become the FCC poster child for "don't be that dumbass using CCR's".

I would make a recording. Give them a warning letter without revealing what you know about the radio "malfunction", then let it happen again (on recording) and then call the FCC to "sort it out" using your tapes and the tools they have, an NAL. Otherwise we continue to have CCR proponents claiming "all is well".

The problem with that is that it isn't a CCR issue. It's a licensee transmitting on unauthorized frequencies...nothing more, nothing less. The same could be done with a Moto or Kenwood or anything else.

In fact, no CCR I have ever seen has a default offset. I'm sure some exist, but none of the ones I have used do. RX and TX frequencies have to be programmed separately. Chirp has auto offset, but the actual radios themselves usually don't, as they were never originally intended to be ham radios. And all of the default frequencies I have seen are set up for simplex. So it is potentially a CHIRP issue. But then again, an offset can also be programmed using the Motorola CPS.