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Agree. $150-200 on the used market plus another $50-75 for a slug if its not in it already, but its really no different than a radio. You get what you pay for. I guess if your buying a $250.00 midland or baofeng a $75.00 meter is expensive but my APX8500 cost way to much to not use a quality meter...

Well. I understand the need for UV, I was there, I thought I needed many bands too, so I bought several Kenwood TH-F6a... with the fastest scan on a portable (at the time), all bands, all modes, etc... based on advice just like yours, that I needed all these things... but what I didn't know at the time was that all I really wanted/needed was one (1) lowly darn channel that worked, from anywhere within 20 miles of the base... without requiring using other people's infrastructure, ie everything else that wasn't my own hardware. Since I've already afforded all of them, and in large quantities, from the BF-888s to the 400+ AT-578UV, and none of those worked as well as the "lowly" single band UHF 6550, I can safely claim that if you're interested in reliable comms then CCRs are not the droids, err, the radios you're looking for; and by reliable comms I mean simplex beyond 2 miles (sometimes more than 1/4 mile is historic for those things), that is. My BF-888s could hit repeaters 25 miles out... but anything tested with commercial GMRS repeaters is doomed to succeed... So, let me ask this question again: What radio would you have in your belt if something goes down? the one radio that can talk from DC to daylight, 1 gazillion contacts, the fanciest AMOLED screen on Earth, sixty hundred ringtones... etc, but you are unable to pick any signal, or a scratched up XPR6350 with just 32 channels, no display, no nothing, that actually picks up the signals when you might need them the most? I think its clear which radio we want to use. Same analogy for a phone, nobody buys a phone with no coverage, no matter how many apps, memory, CPU, etc, it might had. The main purpose of a phone is to communicate, and if it can do other things then that's great, but when you buy a phone you expect it to work everywhere... and then, if it can run Call Of Duty Warzone at 4k 120fps, awesome... but in that order. G.

I like my trusty Bird 43. You need a UHF slug for it but been using mine for over 30 years (along with shop equipment) and never had an issue.

Ham VS GMRS. That's gonna depend on what YOU want to do with the radio hobby. And the number of users in your area on GMRS and their willingness to talk to you. GMRS is VERY limited as opposed to ham radio. You have 7 repeater channels and 14 interstitial. Ham had BANDS of frequencies and a number of modes of operation. You can experiment in ham radio with any sort of communications technology... GMRS is wide band FM on UHF. That's all there is and there ain't no more. I am a communications hobbyist. In short, I like radio. I am a ham. I have a GMRS license (which I waited far to long to get) and I am a commercial radio tech as my chosen career path. GMRS is a PART of my hobby. But I can't build a GMRS radio,,, where I have built several ham radios. Mostly single frequency HF low power stuff, but I built it and communicated with it. The only person that will know if a ham ticket is the thing to get is you, all we can do is explain the differences.

This has already been tried and rejected. See: http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-turns-away-petition-to-allow-hams-to-operate-non-certificated-transmitters-on-gmrs BTW, it has been previously suggested in this thread that price/cost is a factor in certified vs. ham equipment. I am not really sure that is true. It is hard to make a comparison since there are not many HAM single band UHF radios. But, for a rough comparison... GMRS - Midland MXT400 $250 Midland MXT115 & MXT275 $150 Btech 50X1 $200 HAM - ALINCO DR-435TMKIII $230 YAESU FTM-3207DR $169 So, I'd say while the GMRS radios are a bit more expensive, the price difference is not very significant and could well be accounted for by multiple factors like, lower demand, and certification costs. Also, you have to be careful to distinguish between radios manufactured for the ham radio market by vendors like Kenwood, ICOM, Yaesu, etc. and the low end radios labeled as "ham radios" because they are simply uncertified in any service. These include most of the CCRs

Me personally, I think the restrictions of type certified radios for free/public (not business or government) is completely stupid. I feel like most people don't know what is what and can easily end up breaking the rules by mistake. The truth is, I believe that while most ham radios are pretty cheap in quality, they are way better than any new part 95 product on the market today. Many of them are more than capable of performing inside the restrictions of GMRS. People should be allow to use them. That said, if someone is using one for GMRS, I couldn't care less, but I wouldn't go on the internet putting in writing that you are doing it and if someone asks me for advice in the forum, there's going to be a "by the book" response from me.

Lowes carries the Schedule 20 thin wall PVC pipe. You may have Better luck asking for it this way instead of by PSI rating.

They're far, far better radios than anything Midland or BTECH sell, sold, or will sell for the foreseeable future. WRAK968 is about right as far as pricing...880s are a commodity, nothing more.