What types of radios are popular with bubble pack pirates?
While any brand of radio can be operated without a license, the growing problem of unlicensed use across the United States involves newer radio models manufactured for mass retail since mid-2000. The radios typically range in price from $41 on sale to just around $149. These radios are often similar in appearance to FRS radios and have been erroneously advertised as GMRS & FRS hybrid radios. The inexpensive simplex only radios generally have the same features as FRS radios including the annoying call alert function, normally not found in GMRS radios. You probably bought one of these radios thinking you were getting a more powerful FRS radio when in fact you were trading up to an entirely different radio service that only SHARES seven of the fourteen FRS channels. What you gained was maybe a half watt to one and a half watts of output power and the ability to transmit on the eight standard GMRS frequencies typically used for radio repeaters. As a business pirate, a radio shop may have l
