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I listed my original first edition Baofeng UV-82 on eBay for $350 since it's now a pre-tarrif classic..

What about all of those junky/crappy radios (Midlands, TidRadios, Retevis, Wouxun, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc) that were "junk" - and you "threw straight into the trash can" ? Are you staying that instead of taking advantage of the warranties on ALL of those radios that you seem to know so much about and have told us you purchased, and "threw straight into the trash", you never even once considered getting a replacement instead?

I’ve literally never used a warranty in my life. Never needed to.

What is "warranty"? I've never heard of it.

My cheap radios have like 50 menu options. You could say that about most of them.

Think about the warranty issues.

No, but you would be surprised by how many old computers I've picked up in past years sitting by dumpsters in the apartment complex I used to live in. Grabbed a few parts out of one and stick in another, a cheap hard disk from the computer store down the street and I was all set. Loaded up a Linux system and put them on my network. Ran them for years until the power supplies died. Then took out the drives and dumped the dead carcasses in the trash bin.

I'm thinking the radio manual should describe Busy Channel Lock Out as: Busy Channel Lockout - You may think this feature might be useful, but except for a few special cases, you will be wrong.

Based on your input and input so far there is little use, outside of very special cases, for BCL and, in fact, can impede comms on repeaters. Also based on input so far, good practice is to manage the talk out timer by letting the repeater's squelch tail to drop. Lastly, if the channel is noisy or congested select a channel less so and switch to it. Thanks!

Never have used it. Reading about the intent of it, I understand the idea.. but this seems like a "feature" that no one really every asked for, and I am not surprised that it does not work well.

If a person has multiple units, he or she can assign different numbers to each to make it easier to tell them apart. I have not noticed anyone taking advantage of that.

Was that you pushing the shopping cart and wearing bunny slippers the other day?

It means everyone is leaving Ca, mostly the Bay Area

As in your call sign plus a unit number such as a wife, husband, father mother child brother….. so wrwr123 unit 2.

Well, looks like we are now in a all out tariff war with China.. Now,,, when will we see the effects in the cost and supplies. So far nothing,, I wonder if my Chinese radios (dozens) will be worth anything

Hell, you don't have to pick the trash. I'll give it to ya

I have what is probably a silly question, but I searched and couldn't find the answer. What does this mean?

On a side note been checking the vendor lists for the Hamvention in Xenia Ohio next month. https://www.make-it.ca/hamvention/ The inside booths are all sold out, or reserved. The notable thing is several of the big names are not going to be there. Alinco and Yeasu for two examples. Kenwood will be there but has a small foot print. So will Icom, and they look like they will have their usual huge display. The flea market looks like it's also mostly sold out too. This should be interesting given the crazy crap going on with traiffs right now. Hams buy a lot of imported gear of all types. Have to look and see what is going on price wise, and what kind of deals are being offered.

Thanks! Good point on not waiting for the squelch tail drop and its effect. That's something I didn't consider. My favorite repeater's squelch tail seems to be about 2 seconds and the talk out timer is about a minute. Considering your points, the weekly repeater event check-ing probably incentivizes people to break with the good practices. I'll listen to see if they fall back into good practice of letting the squelch tail drop after that. Thanks again.

Reminds me of an eBay ad once. The guy was selling a used Kenwood TK-2170 VHF radio for about $10. Normally they go for $50 to over a $100. The ad copy said the radio beeps, shuts off, the boots back up when trying to transmit. Seller thought it was defective. I had a few an knew exactly what the issue was. So I purchased it. Yup, it was a nearly dead battery pack. Radio worked perfect with a fully charged one. That was a supper good deal I just couldn't pass up.

Gives me something else to look for when out at night trash picking.

I've never used it on any of my radios. As mentioned previously on a repeater you can experience hearing the tone when the transmitting party's carrier drops, but the repeater's hang time keeps the repeater in transmit mode, thus blocking you when the BCL is active. Then you get another station jumps in and you still can't get on the repeater. If someone times out the repeater, you'll know quick enough. They get cut off in mid transmission. The other parties will let the guy that got cut off know soon enough. Experienced repeater users, randomly between themselves, will occasionally let the repeater's carrier drop, thus resetting the timer. I have even heard a user specifically mention they will wait for the repeater's carrier to drop for that purpose. I rarely hear a repeater getting timed out. On simplex, yeah one might use it. But if the simplex channel is busy the other stations likely will just switch to a currently unused channel anyway. Any interference would be temporary.

Nope, it didn't work and no bricked UV5R trying. All it got was a bunch of *** errors.

Yep, pretty much. Or if there's an environment with a lot of traffic and you may not notice you're stepping on someone who started transmitting just before you, I guess, but at that point, pick a different channel.