re: “The only legal way to use a Baofeng is on amateur (you know, ham) frequencies, and you must be a licensed ham.”
They will work on the various ‘dot’ freqs too, and those are unlicensed.
Baofeng UV5R will work on all kinds of frequencies, including the police freqs. That doesn’t mean it is legal. And they are NOT type accepted and cannot be legally used on the “dot” channels. What I said stands.
They weren’t even legal to sell, but Amazon has probably sold tens of thousands, as have many other outlets.
Thousands of these things are in use, and the vast majority of them are used illegally. I don’t hear of any FCC round ups of people for using them, and I never heard of Amazon getting busted for selling them. For what it’s worth.