ICQ Amateur/Ham Radio Presenter Chris Howard (M0TCH) spotted the following radio on sale at £62.95 and asks the question "are Chinese radios driving down prices?"

The Yaesu FT-4XE Dual band VHF/UHF and the single band VHF FT-4VE share the same core feature set and are identical in appearance. The FT4XE and FT-4VE are the ultimate in compact design (W 52mm x H 90mm x D 30mm) handheld transceivers, providing up to 5W of stable and reliable output power thanks to Yaesu's integration of the highly efficient Bridged Transless (BTL) amplifier technology. Both rugged handheld transceivers have 36mm front speakers that deliver 1W of powerful clear and crisp intelligible audio.

The FT-4 range include an extraordinarily robust package of features and specifications such as: over 15 hour operating time (5:5:90 Duty Cycle) with supplied 1750mAh Li-ion battery pack; 3.5 hour rapid charger included; selectable frequency step from 5kHz; two quick programmable keys for quick access to favourite functions; 200 memory channels; 3 home channels and 10 pairs PMS channels; two user-settable different frequencies (one for RX another for TX) in one memory channel; versatile scanning capacities such as VFO scan, memory scan, programmable memory scan (PMS), memory bank scan and dual receive; lockout capacities for keypad/PTT lockout; VOX operation with the optional cloning cable; PC programmable with optional programming cable; FM broadcast receiver; CTCSS/DCS operation; and Time-out-Time (TOT) to name a few.