I noticed this morning that if you search for "two-way radios" on Amazon, in addition to the product listing, Amazon is also displaying an article from "BestReviews.com" that is recommending several Part 90/97 radios from ArcShell, BaoFeng, and LSeng along with a couple of GMRS radios from Midland and Motorola. The worst recommendation they make is for the BaoFeng BF-F8HP (UV-5R 3rd Gen) 8-Watt Dual Band Two-Way Radio (136-174MHz VHF & 400-520MHz UHF), rather than the GMRS-V1. They fail to mention that the Part 90/97 radios require that the frequencies be programmed for each channel. They fail to mention that these radios are capable of using licensed frequencies that are assigned to business and emergency services organizations. They imply that you only need a license if you are using the GMRS radios, inferring that the other radios do not require a license! While I realize that it's only "tilting at windmills" I did submit a contact from to BestReviews.com to tell them that they are (likely unintentionally) encouraging consumers to break the law by using commercial radios without a license. I also "reported the profile" through Amazon, although the report process doesn't ask for any details. Not sure if they will contact me for details or not. I'm sure that others will agree that these kinds of uninformed recommendations are part of the problem with the marketing of "cheap Chinese radios" to the general public. The question is what can be done about it? While there doesn't seem to be a good way to refute the recommendations in the article through Amazon, maybe if enough others would read the "review" and reply using their contact form we could get them to fix their article. Amazon should have the responsibility for clearly identifying that these amateur and business radios require the appropriate FCC license to be operated legally. They are NOT general consumer products.
