I have encountered some like that, but have never bought one.

The first Wouxun ... 1d model that I bought was from Import 
Communications. It was set up out of the box to only transmit in the 
ham bands, and to be programmed from the keypad.

About 2 years ago, the owner of Import Communications and Wouxun with 
through a very noisy and messy parting of ways. Despite those 
fireworks, the Wouxun is still my favorite of the Chinese radios. I own 
two of them.

I also own a Kenwood THF6A, as does my wife. The Kenwood is wonderful, 
and is everything good that has ever been said about it on this list, 
with two exceptions in my opinion.

Those exceptions are:

1. The receiver audio in the Wouxun blows the Kenwood audio completely 
away. Not only is the speaker larger, the audio volume can be set to a 
higher level without distorting to the point of being painful to hear. 
Plus, at any volume level, the Wouxun audio has noticeably better fidelity.

2. Inside the ham bands, both of my Wouxun receivers appear to be more 
sensitive than the Kenwood. I have not had anyone measure their 
receiver specs for a documented comparison. I'm just telling you what 
my ears have told me many times over.

That said, the FM broadcast receiver in the Wouxun, especially the 
first one that I bought in 2010, is awful. The early one pops and 
overloads on a signal that is only slightly above average.

The Kenwood is much better for FM broadcast use. The same may be true 
for scanning outside the ham bands, but I do not do that enough to 
comment one way or the other.

I do not know enough about the current offerings from other 
manufacturers to address Sarah's hand and grip issues. I do know that 
there are some small Yaesu single band models that cannot be programmed 
from a keypad, because they do not have one. I believe the model 
numbers for those radios are FT252 and FT452.

Sarah, let us know which radio you choose.

-- 
Mike Duke, K5XU