BAOFENG

For those at the M&G last night, we briefly discussed the BAOFENG radios. What model is everyone using?

Most buy the 5 watt since they are so cheap i went and bought the 8 watt one.   is it worth double the price i dont know.  i dont think so for what im doing with it i do know you can buy a two pack for about the same price as the 8r radio

Is there one out there you can program FRS and CB channels?

Is there one out there you can program FRS and CB channels?

Not to my knowledge, only FRS.

Is there one out there you can program FRS and CB channels?

Many of the Bofang radios can be programmed for FRS, as their frequency range is close to the UHF ham band the radios were built for.
As for CB.  No.  Because CB is in the HF band, 27-28 mhz range.

It's bass vs treble.

Think of the strings on a guitar, harp, or piano.  The longer the string the lower the pitch.  Imagine trying to get a really low pitch sound out of a really short piano string. This is why the old school CB antenna on jeeps were 8 and a half feet long.  And they worked compared to the hand held CBs or CBs with short mag mounts.  (Mag mounts are nasty evils that should only be used for emergencies.)

Take the data below.  This shows the frequency of each and the related ideal antenna length.  Note that the two UHF frequencies are close in length.

UHF-HAM = 430 - 440 Mhz
   Ideal antenna length = 6.46"

UHF-FRS = 462 - 467 Mhz
   Ideal antenna length =6.05"
CB = 26.9 - 27.4
   Ideal antenna length = 103"

There are ham radios on the market that can do HF / VHF / UHF.  But they are far more expensive than buying a CB and a Boafang.  Also, many of the name brand ham radios are not able or easily able to be modified to transmit on FRS.  Because the name brands follow the FCC rules on power levels and frequency agility (ability to field program a memory restrictions on certain bands).
There are some newer Asian /budget/ radios on the market now on ebay and amazon.  Some of them might do what you want.  But be warned.  These radios have a history of HASH, killing your tunes.  They fail after short times of use. They also often do not have the filtering to keep out noise.  Anything that is ultra wide banded would have a problem rejecting unwanted.  It's a technical conflict of interest.

That said.  I am not a CB fan, but I do see value in having it available.Currently everything I have is ham only for transmit.  Once I am done installing antennas I will be able toreceive CB and FRS.My long term goal for CB is to either modify my ham radio or get a CB under the seat.Due to technical limitations ( I won't bore with details.) I don't think my Icom-706 MKIIG can "safely" be used on FRS like it can be on CB.  I do not want to avoid buying a $35 bofang at the expense of destroy an out of production $800 radio. 

Glad I am finally able to be on the forum.  Thank you Arron and everyone else.Mike,NU8LL