Leaderboard

The Luiton LT-590 UHF and the Midland 400, except for badging and firmware, are the same radio. I have both. Opened up they are identical. The Luiton comes with programming software and programming cable, 200 channels.

The performance of the Btech has been quite adequate for my uses. To the repeater its about five miles through hills and trees. It is located on the flatland and designed to beam back up here into the hills. Simplex, I can cover everyone from my location within five miles using the Nagoya 701c antenna. Again, hills and trees. Its the Gold Country here in far Northern California just to give you an ideda of the terrain. And I am not using the radio for rag chewing. Others may use GMRS for different purposes and that is fine. Would I recommend the Btech radio to a beginner in GMRS? Sure. Maybe its heresy around here, but it is a radio. I don't think I would recommend any of their mobiles. Would I also recommend moving beyond the Btech into part 90/95 equipment like Kenwood, or Icom, etc? You betcha. But just like in amateur radio, the CCRs provide an entry. (nothwithstanding all the non licensed uses, etc). Used properly, one have find great enjoyment from their Potato radio. They can talk to ISS, Satellites, as well do APRS and a whole host of other things. In fact Digital radio is being lead not from D-Star, or Fusion, but DMR and CCRs. (Think Anytone). I went into my purchase of the Btech knowing full well what they are. But heck, the Yaesu FT-60 new I had to send back as it would not TX...so tell me again?

LMRS will never go away... ever. As good as trunked networks, WebEOC and FirstNet are, they will never be reliable because they are all reliant on a single massive infrastructure to exist and be configured correctly to work. Anyone who has ever worked a true SHTF mass casualty, mass municipality response, knows that NONE of those networks work in the affected area. LMRS only requires that an EMP or Nuke hasn't gone off near unprotected radios, and you're moving voice, video and data around the world.