Caution
I own this radio in a new EuroFox (
http://www.eurofox-usa.com). First let me say that I think this is a well designed radio and based on my research, is by far the most feature packed radio you can find for the size and for the money. It is so small and light that when you hold it you think that something surely must be missing.
However, the Australian manufacturer has had some serious problems of late and they have a number of bad radios in the market. I have one of the bad ones (my second bad one). I meet with the owner of the company at Sebring. He did acknowledge that they had problems. Basically, they outsourced the build to some company in Asia (I think). All went well for a period of time and all of the sudden they started having radios returned for problems that were difficult to replicate and to find the cause. Through what he represents to be a long investigation, they determined that the manufacturer had started using some grey market parts that were not up to specs (I want bore you with the details, but it sounded legit).
If you do a little looking on the internet you will find (as you did on here) people who love them (pre grey market parts), and people how hate them (post grey market parts). At least that is the way it appears to me.
As of the beginning of this month, XCOM has started manufacturing the radios in house, in Australia. They estimate that they will be shipping radios in the next couple of weeks.
I do think, and very much hope, that XCOM will get their hands around this. I hope so because they have a unique and feature packed product that I like very much .... when it is working correctly.
Bottom line, DO NOT buy a radio from existing stock. Make sure you are getting a radio that has been built in their factory no earlier than this month. And if you are not in a hurry, I'd wait until some of us get these radios and confirm they have them fixed the problem. This is a very software intensive radio and the possibility still exist that this is a software problem, not a hardware problem.
Keeping my fingers crossed, and my handheld radio close by.
PS: I debated with myself on whether to send this because I do not want to make anyone mad. Could I just ask that it not be sent out side of this forum. If you do, I may not ever get my radio fixed. Thanks