My budget setup

No, you don’t get to choose to follow some regulations and not others.

That's clearly not what I am advocating for.

Otherwise why would I have gotten my call sign for my drones?

You don’t have to buy a spectrum analyzer - but then you should go ahead and spend $70 instead of $30 to get a known-good radio

No.

I was gifted a set of 8w boafengs. They are "known-good radios" given the price and performance, as "good" can be arbitrarily defined for any single dimension.

So no, I will not stop using my perfectly fine radios, and in fact I will continue to advocate others buy them.

If they decide they really want to do UHF/VHF they can always invest in better gear, and keep the second radio as a spare.

You are simply advocating from a position of privilege, and I encourage you to expand your mindset.

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