[CTSARA] Followup on Chinese Radios

[Jon Perelstein]

As a follow-up on the low cost Chinese radios, Joel Hallas had the
following comment:

Charles and Jon,

Thanks for the info, but FYI, some of the low-end radios of this group do
not meet FCC specifications for spurious output -- particularly harmonics.
The ARRL Lab has tested many samples and most of the BaoFeng models tested
have not been legal to use in the US because of this, and I recommend that
they be avoided.

All Chinese manufactured VHF radios that appear in QST advertisements do
meet FCC requirements (at least the samples we tested do) and are legal to
use. If you don't see them there, there's a good chance that they don't meet
requirements and you may be stuck with a radio that isn't legal to use in
the US.

Regards, Joel Hallas, W1ZR
Westport, CT

*************

We have checked and both the TyT models and the Wouxon models are regularly
advertised in QST.

The BaoFeng are not regularly advertised in QST.  However, BaoFeng is
claiming that they meet the technical standards for ham radio use.

Please note that I misunderstood something I read - the BaoFeng is Part 90
only.  BaoFeng sells them to hams on the theory that in general hams are
allowed to re-purpose non-ham equipment as long as the resulting re-purpose
doesn't violate Part 97 technical standards.

In a followup email, Joel said the following:

"We don’t list everything that doesn’t pass muster, but generally let the
manufacturer/distributor  know that there is a problem and that they need
to fix it before they can advertise. The BaoFeng UV-5R is in that category."

I'm not sure what to say about that.  There are an awful lot of UV-5Rs in
use.  But if you're concerned, the $60 TDXone Q8 has appeared in QST ads
and is awwwwfully similar to the UV-5R (hint hint).

Jon