>>1089315They basically use the wall-wart as the regulator, and feed that straight into the PMIC. So yeah, power fluctuations or accidentally plugging a 12v charger into it will at best cause it to stop working, at worst fry the chip. There's almost no input protection or regulation from the connector on the charger.
But that's part of why it's $30 and not $300.
>>1089432>6550Nice, those are solid radios. Saw one of those fall from a tower and explode into a couple pieces when it hit a rung on the way down. Snapped everything back together at the bottom, booted right up and worked.
>>1089432>TaitThat's one brand I haven't seen a whole lot of. Don't get many of them in the US. I understand their DMR stuff is pretty sweet. Not much use for TETRA gear though.
Do kind of agree with your feelings on Kenwood.
Tait does have a really awesome education site:
http://www.taitradioacademy.com/Covers the basics of pretty much everything LMR.
>>1089268>I personally wouldn't risk a yaesu taking it /out/.I had mine in my pack for about as long as i've been snowmobiling. Replaced it with a Motorola once the yaesu started flaking out.
I rely on it for communication, so I'd rather have something I know is going to stand up to the abuse.
>>1089332>Anyone used a lapel mic?Radio's got a spot in my pack, speaker-mic sits on the shoulder strap of my pack. With the Yaesu, that mic would last a year or two (snowmo + moto) before they got wet/dusty/smashed and quit working. Motorola speaker-mic has a few more features (couple of programmable buttons which is nice, and a high/low volume switch which also is nice), but it's also IP67-rated and has a second noise-cancelling mic on it. But that speaker-mic alone is about B2.50 (Baofengs).
Nice to disconnect it from the speaker-mic and throw it on the charger overnight.
Being commercial-grade gear, it's also not only loud, but understandable when it's loud. Way better than any other speaker-mic i've used.