Think that our membership isn't GREAT & that they don't help others, when one of us needs something ODD & "hard to find"??
One of our GREAT members is sending me a perfectly suitable (I believe) laptop for FREE to reprogram the radios.
(I'm going to do something NICE for him & REAL soon.)
IF you want a BETTER radio for VHF than you can buy new (presuming that my reprogramming works & I believe it will) get your nickels & dimes together as including freight from Indiana, I'm likely to have some FIFTY, 296 channel, 110W two-meter radios, that if "turned down" to 50Watts out-put, will likely outlast all of us for LESS than 50 bucks each.
(The GE ORION is truly a workhorse in the most taxing of service at fire departments, hospital & police agencies.)
Fwiw, as a "Storm Rescue & Recovery guy", I would prefer that these radios go to volunteers in rescue/recovery, FIRST.
One of our GREAT members mailed an old-school Panasonic "barely 486" to me, which I received this afternoon, so I'm GOOD TO GO.
(Now all that I need is a Midland programming cable, which I suspect that I'll soon find.)
The converted to 2M MIDLAND 70-1342B arrived this afternoon but WITHOUT the mobile mounting bracket. - Ed couldn't find it & thinks that it was pitched out with the county's scrap metal recycling project.
IF anyone has one in their junk box, I would be a BUYER to keep from having to make one.