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I've been on a few hobby specific web sites. They all have their brand snobs. Whether it's firearms, outdoor power equipment, model railroad, and now radio... if it's not some preferred brand, it's garbage. I've learned to ignore it, but to many noobs this attitude is a turn off. They ask the question, 'on my $xx budget, what should I buy', then look at the products suggested by the brand snob, look at the price, then seek another hobby. I see threads and hear discussions about amateur radio (in all its forms) slowly becoming extinct because of expanding cell phone coverage. Making the newly interested feel that what they can afford is not welcome in the hobby does not make for 'good business'. Ok, so the Chineese radios are not great, but don't knock them. They are the entry point for many, because for only slightly more than $100 you can have a radio and a GMRS license. If you don't like it, you're only out around $100. If you do enjoy the hobby, you can drop the coin and upgrade to a better radio. These "CCRs" are my entry point and I am enjoying this hobby. I expect that I will upgrade to better equipment at some point, but at the moment, I'm running what I can afford; what I can afford to lose if I don't like it.

That is a good idea for those radios without that capability. If I were doing that, I would configure the split channel as a Rx only channel so as to avoid its accidental use as a simplex channel which would/could interfere with repeater operations. I would also configure it without tone so nothing would be blocked. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

No. The J-Pole antenna is a 1/2 wave length long for the radiating section. The end of the antenna has a rather high impedance making for a very poor match to 50 ohm coax. Thus the extra length is due to an additional 1/4 wave matching section, the section with the short length of extra conductor parallel to the long one, where the tap point selected yields the desired 50 ohms. The overall length will be closer to 3/4 wave length long. At 462MHz the wave length is about 64.7 cm (25.8 inches) and 3/4's of that would be 19.1 inches, just what you measured. http://www.ka3pmw.com/files/jpole_presentation_rev2.pdf

Looks like Wouxun may be taking the FRS, GMRS and MURS radio market seriously. They already have the KG-805G and KG-805M. Looks like the 805F is imminent, and they have the KG-UV9G which is projected to have FCC approval yet this month according to the Better Save Radio site. One can now infer from the following link that they have multiple additional models on the horizon. For GMRS alone I see a 905G and 1000G model in the list. https://fcc.report/ELS/Cricket-Ventures-LLC/0591-EX-CN-2020 Cricket Ventures is the parent company of BuyTwoWayRadios.Com. For what it is worth, I own (2) KG-805G and would buy them again without hesitation. They are an incredible value at their price. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I have a couple of KG805Gs and so far I think they about perfect for my application which is basic family communication. The price was right and they are better than my Motorola Talkabout radios which are pretty good in an of themselves. B