Here’s an interesting capability: A dual band Handie Talkie with FM, AM, DSB and CW. Yep, you read that right,, it’s practically an all mode transceiver in an H/T form factor.
You get what you pay for, this radio was cheap and yes, it’s from China, it sports a CE and an FCC slicker in the battery compartment. The radio is a dual bander from Quanshang, UV-K6, and it is hackable, you can change the firmware.
I’ve flashed IJV version 3.4 by Fabrizio, an Italian ham, IU0IJV. The firmware modifies the radio to allow transmission on FM, AM, CW and double sideband (DSB). My short experiments give AM good grades, DSB requires some tweaking, i need to build an interface to hook a key to try it out on CW. Nancy says I sound like a robot when we experimented with DSB, and she did when she called me back. We need to tinker at longer ranges t see if the problem was RF getting into the radio because it was inside to house to outside. An important point for folks who say this radio doesn’t transmit AM or DSB… It doesn’t transmit out of the box initially, I had to enable transmit in the service menu. I think it’s menu item 65.
I bought two of these to experiment with. They aren’t going to be my primary portable radio, but we’ll see how it goes. We’ll experiment with AM at range and then try DSB. I would like to see the ability to suppress the upper or lower sideband making it a true SSB radio. My goal is not to do HF or 6 meter sideband, it’s to do 2 meter and 70cm sideband… and if I can’t get the sideband to sound good we’ll still use it for AM.
Now for the disclaimers, you need to make sure you set it up for FCC which limits transmit to 144 – 148 and 420 – 450 MHz. If you transmit in a band you’re not licensed to use, you are responsible for your actions if the FCC decides they need to pay you a visit. As with everything you buy on Amazon, your mileage may vary. If you decide to flash the radio, you hold the pieces if you brick the radio. With all of that said, have fun!