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<H1>Chinese HTs may be illegal to import. </H1>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Some deals are too good to be true.. <EM>or legal</EM>.
<BR>That’s the story with some rather inexpensive HT's being sold on-line.
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Amateur Radio Newsline's <STRONG>Bill Pasternak,
WA6ITF</STRONG>, has more..</FONT></P><FONT face=Verdana>
<HR align=center width="50%" noShade>
</FONT>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Inexpensive VHF and UHF transceivers made in China that
transmit and receive on the 2 meter and 70 centimeter bands appear to be illegal
for hams to buy from overseas dealers and have shipped into the United States.
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG>This is because the radios have not
passed</STRONG> the FCC <STRONG>certification procedure</STRONG>, nor can they,
as they are designed to transmit on frequencies outside of the United States
amateur radio allocations right out of the box.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The radios in question bear names like Puxing, FDC,
Wouxon, and numerous others. They are being mainly sold on e-Bay and similar
on-line auction sites world-wide at prices ranging from $30 to $80 plus
shipping. Most of the ads originate from dealers in Taiwan or Hong Kong although
some have come from other Pacific Rim nations as well.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>According to postings on various chat websites, the radios
themselves are not all that bad quality. Not great, but not to shabby. Almost
all of them feature a back-lit LCD display, up to 100 memory channels,
programmable repeater offsets, and even a built-in CTCSS tone
encoder.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Output power on the VHF units approaches 5 watts while the
UHF models average around 2 watts out.<BR>Hams using them report that the
transmit audio quality ranges from a bit muffled to good depending on the model
and manufacturer of the set.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>With retail prices far below that of similar radios from
Alinco, Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu, hams on this side of the Pacific might find
these Chinese built transceivers hard to resist. But as pointed out in on-line
postings, the biggest problem aside from it being illegal to import is where to
get one fixed if its dropped or stops operating? <BR>Also, replacement battery
packs might be very hard to find if the one that comes with the radio goes flat
and cannot be revived.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana><EM><STRONG>Bill Pasternak,
WA6ITF</STRONG></EM><BR>Amateur Radio Newsline<BR>Los
Angeles.<BR><BR></FONT></P></BODY></HTML>