DV Info Net - wireless walkie talkie watches or?

For what it is worth, the Baofeng radios can be perfectly legal, IF, you have the appropriate license. The harmonisation with the EU means the old MPT specifications are now blended in with virtually identical CEPT ones. The upshot is that equipment must meet these standards, but the old individual model testing seems to have been abandoned, because it's quite easy for modern equipment to meet the spurious emissions and frequency stability specs, and drifting really isn't an issue any more. This gives you a choice of frequencies, a bit like your radio mic license, and you can programme these in, add some CTCSS codes for a bit more resilience to other people on your channel, and they are actually pretty nice radios, and by all accounts pretty reliable.

The stories about them being illegal are just a misunderstanding with the non-business, free to use PMR446 system. This spec has 6 channels, operating lower down in the UHF spectrum. The Baofeng radios will operate on these channels BUT they are NOT legal when used there. Two main reasons. Too much power, and a detachable aerial. PMR446 cannot have a connection to a better/higher aerial, so they are fixed in place, which limits range. The PMR 446 channels are also slightly offset, so using a higher power transmitter can wipe out more than one PMR446 channel.

The old stuff about disturbing emergency services is largely obsolete advice too now. The old emergency service allocation between 451 and 453MHz is now virtually closed down. A few prisons, and a few legacy fire service units still have equipment in that allocation, but Airwave took the traffic away a long time ago now. The only other emergency service in there would be the coastguard in marine band.

The remaining channels in the UHF spectrum are empty, or used for data services. VHF has similar services in it. Operating in the authorised band rarely causes any grief as you are essentially operating locally. I have quite a few radios I'm licensed to use in the VHF and UHF bands, and nowadays, even if I get interference, there's no point complaining - there's not a local investigation unit anywhere near me, and frankly they're not bothered by business radio or PMR446.

Key features are how you transmit. Press to Talk is a bit of a pain, but the alternative, VOX is a pain - transmitting when you speak, but cutting off the first syllable of every over. Many of these things can have remote mics, and lots have an earpiece socket, so you stick the radio on low power (so it doesn't interfere with your audio), and clip the mic to somewhere where you can talk into it. I have Icom, Kenwood and Motorola equipment - and a few Chinese bits of kit. The only real difference is that the expensive ones bounce and work. My Chinese ones have cracks in the cases, a few have battery packs that fall off, and one has a dodgy battery, charge wise. However, at their price, they're great when you know they will be abused. Smash an Icom and weep, smash a Baofeng and buy another!