Great news about Baofeng. We need this here.

[mmckenna]

I've never actually owned one, I've tried it out a few times. Do some Baofeng's actually come pre-programmed with ham freqs? I don't quite understand how that could even work, unless it was like National calling or something.

They are seemingly random "test" frequencies. Presumably for testing the radio as it goes flying down the assembly line. They are left in the radio and when the consumer gets them, they are there for the using.

Some have been shown to be active public safety frequencies in the USA.

The average consumer that is buying these things assumes that since it came from Amazon (or e-Bay) that it's the same as an FRS radio and no license is required.

 

[kayn1n32008]

The funny thing is how cheap you can get a XTS or XPR for these days on fleabay. I guess some people will always look for the absolute cheapest option, if that's what they're after then Baofeng wins every time...

Yup. Buy garbage, expect garbage results, them pollute the spectrum.

 

[nd5y]

The wiki has lists of frequencies that some models ship with.

CCR Default Frequencies - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

These are old lists from before the FCC public notice in 2018 or 2019 and before the Chinese manufacturers recertified several models as Part 15 scanning receivers and started shipping radios with new firmware that only transmit in the 144-148 and 420-450 amateur bands.
So far I haven't seen anybody post a current list of factory frequencies from the past couple years for the UV-5R, BF-F8HP, and UV-82 type radios and clones.

 

[MTS2000des]

The FCC and a lack of customs' enforcement is to blame. The ship has sailed. There are literally millions of these road apple one chip wonder noise generators on the air in America. The same stuff is going down with cheap BDAs and cellular signal boosters. The only thing I can say is, I now have some job security and have proven my value to my agency tracking one of them down. Yes, the FCC is involved- but I don't expect any action. They are a joke and are too busy pandering to the telecom cartels selling off spectrum.

It's almost like they WANT the collective noise floor to rise so that LMR becomes as useless as part 95 27MHz is.

 

[PrivatelyJeff]

They are seemingly random "test" frequencies. Presumably for testing the radio as it goes flying down the assembly line. They are left in the radio and when the consumer gets them, they are there for the using.

Some have been shown to be active public safety frequencies in the USA.

The average consumer that is buying these things assumes that since it came from Amazon (or e-Bay) that it's the same as an FRS radio and no license is required.

yep. My dad bought some and I chewed him out because he started using them out of the box. I took the, away and reprogrammed them for FRS/1 watt just to keep him from screwing up stuff.

 

[WRQS621]

i have been a HAM long enough to remember when they said the same thing about ICOM and Yaesu.