I didn't know there earbuds with hooks, I'll have to take a look next time I'm in a store.

As for the APCO25 stuff: Yeah, I knew there were major changes going on and I should have done a little research, but my primary interest was in a quality portable recv'r for commercial broadcast band am/fm and NWS weather that had a speaker and ran off AA batteries. Being able to pick up the other stuff was a bonus. I looked in to cheaper radios, and the one universal seemed to be that they all sucked at recvg the weather stations. Another bonus with the Icom is that it has a weather alert feature.