Lscott

I know the older model can. See attached files for more info on the radios. D878UV Maintenance Mode Password.pdf AT-D868_D878 Info and mods 20240607.pdf

The relevant sections are: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/95.971 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95/subpart-D/section-95.973 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95/subpart-D/section-95.975 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carson_bandwidth_rule

For $25 you won't get the performance you expect. There are other things you should look at such as RX sensitivity, de-sense, channel isolation, spectrum free from harmonics, spur response, frequency accuracy and stability etc. Most people don't have the equipment to do these kinds of tests. If you know somebody with a good quality commercial radio grade service monitor I would stick the radio on it and run some tests. Some decent used ones run around $1K plus used. I believe one of the members of this forum got a used one in this price range a while back specifically for testing his radios and repeaters. A few that can do auto tune up, radio calibration, and digital mode testing can run over $10K to $20K plus used. For example the cheap, $25, Baofeng UV-5R early version had dirty transmitters. They were multi-band radios. You could talk on several all at the same time! I'm not knocking your desire to do a video on the radio. But remember you give people the idea the radio is the best thing since sliced bread, people buy them because they're cheap, and now the local bands have issues with crappy signals on the air. UV-5R VHF Harmonics Test.pdf

https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/spectrum-management-telecommunications/en/official-publications/policies/spectrum-utilization-policies-sp/sp-462467-mhz-spectrum-utilization-policy-permit-licence-exempt-devices-land-mobile-frequency-sub

If you can put it on a scope and frequency counter to verify that. Then the next test is output power. That I expect to suck. Trying to design a tuned power amp stage to have that kind of bandwidth is going to cost a lot more than $25. I know many people thought their D878’s could do 1.25M since they could program in the frequencies. However the real results at the antenna port just wasn’t there to make it worth the trouble.

Opportunity for the manufactures to sell more radios with "New Features" for more money.

Looked it up. Tops out at 520MHz. The RX around 300MHz might be useful. Military air communications use frequencies in that range. For $25 don’t expect good performance. I’m about 20 miles west of Selfridge Air National Guard Base here in Michigan. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/04/29/trump-announces-new-fighter-jet-mission-at-michigan-air-base/ For a few years my folks had a house on a canal going to Lake Saint Clare just a couple blocks south of the entrance to Metro Park. You could stand in their back yard and watch the military flights taking off and landing all day long. Would have been cool to monitor the radio traffic that’s not encrypted.

Remember those people claim it's a communication hobby. Really?

Read section C. These are the repeater main 467 channels. Fixed stations I believe are primarily for equipment control and not for normal communications. This would make sense since the 467 main channel frequencies are the repeater inputs, which can also receive control commands from a fixed station. 47 CFR § 95.1763 - GMRS channels. | Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR) | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute

Can't tell that when on channel 6, The Super Bowl.

Good question.

If you're transmitting on the output frequency then that's simplex operation on a repeater channel, which is legal, even if there is one but not currently in use. Doing so might be a poor practice. However you can ONLY transmit on a repeater input frequency when using a repeater. It's not for simplex operation.

Canada has their own version of GMRS. https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/spectrum-management-telecommunications/en/official-publications/policies/spectrum-utilization-policies-sp/sp-462467-mhz-spectrum-utilization-policy-permit-licence-exempt-devices-land-mobile-frequency-sub

Depends on who you ask. It turns out there really isn't one. Before it was generally accepted to use 20. Now people are advocating for 19, and others don't use either one. It's turning into a bit of a mess since people simply can't agree on one and stick with it.