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Nothing wrong with that idea. Who do you propose should take on the responsibility of doing that? A thread was setup for exactly that purpose a few months ago, it went dead after listings for a half-dozen radios or so. I can't even find that topic now.

The real problem is - they don't realize that for similar prices, they can buy used commercial radios that have 10 times better specs.

Sounds like you're very well prepared! I think a number of first responders learned from the great north east black out and made better plans. What gets me are the some what frequent posts where a new GMRS user gets a radio for "emergencies" and seems to have no plans beyond that. No idea about how to keep the radios running when the batteries die. Not to mention things like heat, water and food if its really bad. Where I'm at the most likely case is a power outage. For that I have several solar panels, charger controllers and a collection of various sized LiFePO4 battery packs. Some of the radios will operate directly off of a 12VDC supply, others can use a 12VDC power adapter to recharge them. The nominal voltage for a 4S LiFePO4 battery pack is around 13.3 to 13.4 volts over most of the discharge cycle. When the pack is nearly dead the voltage is still up around 12.8 volts. The commercial HT radios I have need to use a charge cradle with a wall wart AC to DC adapter. I modified one charge cradle to add a pigtail with Anderson Power Poles, to interface with the battery packs, since it only needed somewhere between 12 to 15 volts max to work. So when the power fails I can keep the cell phone charged up, radios running and a few lights on using some low voltage LED light strips. I have a gas fireplace I can use for heat and stove for cooking so that shouldn't be a problem. I keep almost nothing in the fridge so I don't worry about that.

All good - but it'd be a much more accurate comparo (to the previous test) if you'd match the receiver and video bandwidths - and the test was done using the same test equipment....

Here is the same basic test with a Yaesu FT-1D. Note that all harmonic spurs are well below the noise floor, at least 62dB down from the fundamental frequency. This is what is meant by "spectrally pure!"

Who do you think should answer you ? Many GMRS operators run PL/DPL so they only hear who they want to hear. If there is a repeater they may have that but even that may have specific info that needs loaded in your radio. If your handehld talks to your base then your good. Most of us dont use GMRS to chat on like ham radio folks do. Its a tool alot of times to keep track of family or friends and thats about it. I'll be honest I dont think I have ever heard someone just call out on my radios and if they did i doubt id answer.

Most people only seem to care about new vs used, it seems that we've been brainwashed to think used == garbage... new == good. So, until that mentality isn't eviscerated, people will keep buying garbage new CCRs no matter how atrocious the specs are... As a recently rehabilitated CCR addict, I can tell you this: none of those specs tables, spec comparison, etc, none would make a lick of a difference, a) b/c most people don't understand what the specs mean b ) all CCR specs are "made up" to match whatever the radio they are trying to "oust" in the market. are... The best analogy I can think of ATM is cheap flashlights made in China, using China Lumens, using a knock-off CREE leds too... like the infamous CREE XML-T6, which puts about 800 lumens under most realistic scenarios... but the cheap china flashlights manufacturers claim their cheap knockoff magically produces 5000 Lumens now... again... this is the same exact thing. Until you don't try a real CREE led, on a high quality flashlight housing/reflector etc, and see the massive difference in color temperature, CRI level, beam pattern, etc... you'll keep buying the cheap flashlights.... The same applies to radios, and I can safely state that nothing short of a real world demonstration would've convinced me to believe that the CCRs I was buying were actually crap... G.

The flip side is at those prices, a lot more people can dip their toe in. When they realize it's for them, they can grow into a better system.

Here is an example:

As long as the ground plane material is electrically conductive, properly sized, and the antenna mount is properly grounded to the ground plane, drilled or not won’t matter. We’ve made highly effective ground planes out of steel, aluminum, and copper screening, foil tape, chicken wire (and other fence materials), and more.

I live in Arkansas born and raised and have heard multiple people in my area say there are gators near our lakes. I live within 5 miles of Lake Ouchita, and have not seen any yet. I know in south Arkansas gators are very common to see. I have no sitings yet and hopefully don't get the chance to see one face to face!