2-Way Radios - How to choose?

I am looking to get a pair of 2-way radios for my family. I live in a rural area, and wanted longer range 5-mile ones. There are too many manufacturers and models all under $100. How to choose? Is there a forum somewhere or a central review repository or something? CPF spoils a guy...

Do a Google search on the class of radio you're interested in and see what comes up.

It's my understanding (I was into this stuff a lot before CPF, I don't read as much now as I used to but I still follow it a little) that the 5 mile radios that are under $100 and the same size as the 2 mile radios will have about the same range as the 2 mile radios. The 5 miles is advertising hype--unless you get one of the larger, more expensive radios.

A lot of it is prefrences...here are some of mine:
Folding antennas are nice but rare
AA batteries last lots longer than AAAs
Motorola radios are nice, but don't play will with other brands

Ditto what Saaby said, I have several and tried many more. I found the 5 mile ones I tried where not as good as the 2 mile ones...go figure. I have 3 AAA bat ones and, while they sound/work great, they have terrible batt life. So one thing I would do is limit my choices down the AA batt ones. The two I use the most are Motorola Talkabouts (T6200 3 AA batts). They work just fine and have great batt life. The other three are made by Bell (4 AAA batts). They sound even better...but oh...you better keep your pockets full of AAA batts. Unless you are just going to brodcast for only a wee little bit.

I bought 2 FRS HTs from Radio Shack that run on 2AAs: NEVER again! They are the same model, but either the main frequency is off on one, or the deviation is (or both). By the time I actually tried to use them for the first time, they were out of warranty.

Phaserburn,

You face a bit of a problem there. Although FRS has a decent range of 2 miles, in order to get a range of 5 miles requires the use of an FCC licence (least it does here in Canada). What you might be interested in is possibly citizens band (CB) radio. I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but a CB can put up a base station antenna (similiar to the side of trucks) and get better range. As for the price range, I don't think that can be done.

FRS and "5 Miles" is a joke. Maybe from mountain top to mountain top.

You really need to look into either GMRS or MURS radios. The MURS stuff is basically the old Business band "intinerant" channels

Even with GMRS, 5 mile range between two HT's needs near-ideal conditions. Bigger antennas than those little stubby things helps. More power helps. Mobile antennas mounted on the car roof (if you're using the HT in a car) help a tremendous amount because of the ground plane the roof provides (I don't know if that's legal for GMRS though). But to get any serious amount of reliability you need a repeater system on a tall building or hilltop, which is probably way outside the scope of what you want to do.

Another alternative is to get you and your family licensed for hamradio. It opens up many other options. Repeaters, HF, microwave, etc. It is difficult to summarize hamradio in one sentence as it encompasses many different modes of operation.

73s,

Joey KE6VFA

I still haven't made a choice but check out this thread on 186, it has a lot of good info on the GMRS 2 watt stuff.

http://186thousand.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000228#000001

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paulr said:
Even with GMRS, 5 mile range between two HT's needs near-ideal conditions. Bigger antennas than those little stubby things helps. More power helps. Mobile antennas mounted on the car roof (if you're using the HT in a car) help a tremendous amount because of the ground plane the roof provides (I don't know if that's legal for GMRS though). But to get any serious amount of reliability you need a repeater system on a tall building or hilltop, which is probably way outside the scope of what you want to do.

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Yes - you can even run GMRS base stations - something like 25 watts. It's not just the little hand helds

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Screehopper said:
Another alternative is to get you and your family licensed for hamradio. ...snip...

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Joey,
I didn't recommend Ham radio because of the multiple person aspect, but yeah, ham radio is cool (see my user name?). 5 Miles. A nice little 2m HT should do, if not, there is always mobile units, bigger antennas, more watts, other freqs (assume only a Tech license - go to 6m), NVIS antennas....

I've been thinking way too much about disaster mode comms lately, or should I say as usual, as I'm the local EC

Just so you know...don't waste your time looking for an FRS/GMRS with an external antenna port. They don't exist. It's illegal to modify/add an antenna to an FRS radio (Other than the built in one)

I suppose there could be an external antenna port that only came into play when using GMRS but I doubt it.

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KC2IXE said:
I've been thinking way too much about disaster mode comms lately, or should I say as usual, as I'm the local EC

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Ah. I also partake in disaster comms. Currently active member of the LA DCS. And past member of Riverside RACES. One of these days I'll upgrade from General to Extra.


Joey