Question: I just bought a pair of BaoFeng 888s radios and they don't work out of the box. I know they are on the illegal freqs, but I expected them to work. 

I got the cable, reprogrammed them to the recommended freqs (does any one has a good \*.dat file for USA?) and they still don't work with each other. 

What could I possibly do wrong? I select the same channel (1-1 or 2-2) and press button to talk, but I don't hear anything coming from the other radio. 

The speaker is working, because I can hear it saying "power on".

UPD: here are the frequencies I'm trying to use by following the Amazon review comment:
Out/Simplex Repeater input (use only first column if you don't have a repeater)

* 462.550 ---- 467.550
* 462.575 ---- 467.575
* 462.600 ---- 467.600
* 462.625 ---- 467.625
* 462.650 ---- 467.650
* 462.675\* --- 467.675\*
* 462.700 ---- 467.700
* 462.725 ---- 467.725

Answer: 
A channel can transmit on one frequency and receive on another. When you push the PTT button, watch the display to see if the frequency changes. If so, pick a channel for testing where this does not happen.

Radios can also encode tones in the audio path that must match on the transmitter and receiver or the receiver must be programmed to ignore these tones. The tones go by a variety of names such as PL, CTCSS, DCS, or tone. Pick a channel for testing that does not use tones.

If you are testing on frequencies for which you are not licensed, you should transmit into a dummy load instead of an antenna to prevent violating the regulations or law.
`Does any one have a good *.dat file for USA?`

Try CHIRP (chirp.danplanet.com). CHIRP goes out and downloads the "recommended" frequencies, offsets and all, for your area.

It's the best software I've seen for programming my wife's Baofeng UV-5R, MUCH better than the software that Baofeng supplies on that CD.

**EDIT:** A Google search reveals that this is a common problem with the 888s. Here is a link to a thread about this (way too long to post here). Basically, common fixes are changing the device driver and/or the cable. 
<http://chirp.danplanet.com/issues/4249>