While going through radio recommendations and reviews for my website, I have found a few BaoFeng radios on amazon that are marketed, and even listed as GMRS and MURS radios. They even come preloaded with channels... but they don't have a part 95 grant. And, upon closer inspection, some of them are even coming pre loaded with frequencies in police bands, medical bands, and others. I have since taken them off of my website because of it.

Unfortunately, the off road community is a little to blame for the misuse of some of the 140 and 440 frequencies. Which is one of the main things I am trying to change by properly educating them about Ham vs MURS vs GMRS vs CB vs FRS and why it is important to follow the proper rules and protocols for those services. Most of it is due to lack of knowledge about how frequencies work, combined with distributors and manufacturers not giving proper information on what frequencies their preloaded channels are set to.

It's a work in progress... the more we can spread the word about it and educate, the better.


On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 1:02 PM, Alan Maenchen <ad6e@arrl.net> wrote:
Thanks Bob!

Evidently the program is in jeopardy. There will be no more OOs until something changes but I don't really know why. I've heard of some serious problems in Las Vegas area where OOs might really help. Specifically, non-ham use of the 144 and 440 MHz band and also using repeaters by non-hams for commercial use. Might be a result of all the cheap Baofang HTs on the market that have some common repeater frequencies pre-loaded. I don't know the details. 

73, Alan  AD6E





On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 10:02 AM, Robert Hess <w1rh@yahoo.com> wrote:
For what it's worth, I'm the Sacramento Valley Section OO Coordinator.  

Bob
W1RH



From: Chris Tate - N6WM <ctate@ewnetinc.com>
To: Alan Maenchen <ad6e@arrl.net>
Cc: MLDXCC <mldxcc@contesting.com>; NCCC <nccc@contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: [NCCC] [Mldxcc] ARRL Pacific Division Leadership Meeting

They did mention the OO program, in flux currently, where no new appointments are being made right now, but existing OOs still out there continue to focus on education and doing their reports..  both bad and good

Thanks
~C.


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Tyler Laursen
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Wilson Sporting Goods
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