Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

TLDR: The only available choice to have a good quality GMRS type-approved transceiver at a good cost as of today. This radio is based on UV-82c hardware (which is type 90 certified equipment) and therefore specs and behavior in terms of selectively, noise floor and DTC/CTCSS rejection are the same. No need to repeat here - it behaves exactly as my other UV82c. However, there are some quirks, bugs, and amusing facts -- on which I'll focus for this review. In my quest to find quality GMRS approved radio I have tried a number of bubble pack radios from Midland and Motorola and nether of them comes even close to this in terms of build quality and performance. So I'll just dump my experience with this unit over few weeks here - mostly stuff that I did not find when shopping but nevertheless would have been good to know in advance; 1. Output power into dummy 50 Ohm load on GMRS channel 550 I measured (with "Surecom SW33 SWR and Power Meter") to be as follows: High = 3.5W, Low = 1.1W I get the same numbers with my UV82c (which is expected, same HW). Pro tip - to quickly toggle power from High to Low single-press the "#" key. 2. In VFO mode the scanner functionality is a bit buggy - but the bug is always there and is predictable so can be lived with: when you enter Scan mode the radio asks for the range to scan -- "from" and "to" frequencies in MHz, three digits each. So, lets say you enter 462:463. You would expect it to start scanning up from 462Mhz with the configured step, then reach 463Mz and loop back? This not what happens. It start from 463Mhz (end value), counts all the way to (but not including) the next whole Mhz (464 in this case) and then loops back to 462 (the beginning of the specified range) and continues scanning; then again goes past 463 and loops back to 462 after almost reaching 464. (confirmed with Support that this is indeed software quirk) 3. In dual stand by mode if you have two channels configured that are neighboring (e.g. one FRS and the other neighboring GMRS) and both have DCS enabled and radio receives GMRS signal it completely loses its mind -- emits nasty noise, switches back and forth and flashes leds. (UV82c do the same BTW, only to somewhat smaller degree.). Workaround - don't use neighboring FRS/GMRS channels in dual standby mode. It's a bug, but again not a deal breaker. 4. in VHF mode the suppression of DCS and/or CTCCS is rather poor - you can hear the tone overlaid on the speech. (same with UV82c - so it's likely hardware limitation) 5. Output power and FCC: The FCC ID for this uint is 2AGND-GMRS-V1. You can look it up on FCC web site (search for equipment authorizations or via fcc.io) -- The first submission for GMRS type approval (see Part 95a) was rejected due to failed SAR compliance so BTech capped output power to 2 W and resubmitted: it then passed. (The test report here https://fccid.io/2AGND-GMRS-V1 (tab 2016-09-15) lists output power to dummy load at under 1.89W and 1.97W on the page 9). Now look at item 1 above again and make your own conclusions. 6. Support is very responsive and reasonable. I have emailed them a few times discussing those bugs and usually they would respond within 2 hours. Even during the weekend. Amazing stuff. To summarize: I was unable to find any other GMRS type-approved radio on the market that performs better for any price (You can view my reviews for Motorola and Midland top models on amazon for comparison) - which means if you want to use GMRS service legally but not struggle with crappy bubble-pack toys - get this one. (And be sure to obtain GMRS license from FCC). This is essentially software limited version of part 90 certified UV82c -- the transmit in VFO mode and on any manually configured channel except first 22 is disabled; The first 22 channels are fixed to standard shared FRS, GMRS and Repeater frequencies with customizable privacy codes and power levels. It comes with rather well published user manual - much better one than the one that came with my 82c. Why 5 stars? Because for the price and the current market landscape the performance and value it is miles ahead of competition.