Concur with all. I just ordered the Wouxun KG-UV6D v2 at http://www.wouxun.us/item.php?item_i...category_id=66 for all of the reasons mugwump just listed. Yes, it is more expensive but it also has a better reputation in the HAM community.
For anyone considering purchasing one of these radios - I STRONGLY recommend getting your HAM Technician license. Two weeks ago I spent a week of evenings reading the ARRL study guide and 20 minutes taking the test on the following Saturday morning. Painless. Had my results before I left the test site and my license the following Monday. A simple investment of time and $15 that will allow me to build experience legally and interact with a community of hobbyists that can help me improve my skills BEFORE I need them. To be blunt - knowing the rules and abiding by them makes life easier and flattens the learning curve. When the SHTF, all bets are off - do whatever you have to do to communicate (emergency - e.g. threats to life, etc.). And that is recognized in the law. Until then, I'm going to practice "squeaky clean".
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A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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