re: “They weren’t even legal to sell,”
MOST all of these are certified for Part 95 land mobile use, which includes buiness band, Taxicab, and yes, police and fire. Someone got there *anties in a twist and challenged that status, but MY READ is that they are legal NOTWITHSTANDING some moaners and complainers who complained to the FCC.
How could they have gotten certified when they are keypad programmable?
Again, there is no legal way to use them outside of amateur radio use. And many of them are not “clean” enough on VHF to even be legal there. (Harmonics are not adequately suppressed).
I don’t really care who uses them where. I own a few myself, because they make for decent cheap throw away radios, particularly good for general purpose monitoring. They de-sense quite easily due to unfiltered front ends so they aren’t any good near other high power transmitters or antennas.
But what do you expect for 30 bucks?