The headline lead me to believe they were finding <i>people</i> with Baofeng amateur radios, so as to prosecute them...<p>Indeed, there are repeaters out there who's owners have "banned" Baofeng operators[0] since they believe the radios aren't legal (due to high spurious emissions[1]) underamplified microphones, poor output audio levels, and clicking noises, and that their low cost is undermining "real" ham radios. They can be uniquely detected through fingerprinting [2] (typically by looking at it's carrier frequency drift during the first few seconds of keydown).<p>No, this is just using a Baofeng transmitting the output from an mp3 recorder using an Arduino-powered relay to key the radio. This is also known as foxhunting[3], and it's a lot of fun!<p>[0] <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Baofeng/comments/5aitr0/oregons_largest_repeater_network_just_banned/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/Baofeng/comments/5aitr0/oregons_lar...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://hackaday.com/2018/09/25/buy-a-baofeng-while-you-still-can-fcc-scowls-at-unauthorized-frequency-transmitters/" rel="nofollow">https://hackaday.com/2018/09/25/buy-a-baofeng-while-you-stil...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_fingerprinting" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_fingerprinting</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_direction_finding" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_direction_findin...</a>
anecdotal evidence, but I once bought a Baofeng F8hp as a cheap 2 meter for a trip to catalina island. The flashlight LED on it died on the ferry over, and the radio itself eventually barely received even local NOAA, let alone the 2m/440 relay at the islands airport. At no time could i hit any repeater.<p>the sights and sounds were incredible, but it was the last time I went cheap.