Firstly would like to ask what I should be looking for in a decent pair? These would be used for emergencies only.<snip> Note, these would be used in a city with buildings, so I already know i might run into some issues, however, there is a chance that we would not be far apart, but would need to keep in touch with each other. Including between building floors. Might also be used for overseas travel.
Anything involving cities usually benefits more from UHF radios rather than VHF although VHF can work fine and still does to this day, in my area it's more of Fire freqs. Public Safety (Police) and Medical units generally use UHF somewhere in the 460MHz range. VHF does do better versus foilage and mild hilly areas.
1. I don't think it exists but I want something that uses normal alkaline batteries because I do not plan to use these expect in an extreme emergency. So recharging types just aren't going to work because I know if they sit too long the batteries will die.
You are going to run into a couple of problems with that model: 1) Alkaline cells have TERRIBLE energy density; 2) the radio will be physically bigger, which may or may not be a problem; and 3) radios of good report don't always use AA type cells. Radios are terrific battery sinks, primarily when they are transmitting. Even my scanner (Uniden 396T) can go through three 2700mAh batteries in less than 8 hours just sitting on one active frequency with moderate traffic -- cut that by about a third if it's in scan mode, particularly if it's monitoring a trunked system (like SF Bay Area BART).
2. Long Range. 10-30mi The Cobra CXR875's are nice. Longer would be better, but I think when it comes to walkie-talkies in the under $100 price range, that is probably the longest distance I am going to get out of them.
If someone has a radio that fits those specifications and price range, I will guarantee the radio network will just about implode
overnight. 1) Those radios are FRS/GMRS specification. I can come up with multiple google results describing the terrible quality of those things. 2) You will not get 10 miles (16km) or 30 miles (50km) out of one of those unless you are in very specific cirumstances that are notoriously difficult to setup and duplicate. This would be like a cool dry day on the top of a 4km high mountain with no clouds or other interference for 50km in every direction, at night. 3) I spent $150 each for some Tekk NT-10 business radios that were programmed with MURS freqs (~150MHz range) and they are decent. You'll want some kind of business or better class radio. The money is worth it.
3. Price under US$100 for a pair.
At that price point, you won't get much. "Bubblepacks" as they are called, are lightly esteemed by the radio community. They do have their place, but don't be surprised if you get about 1.5km MAX out of them, and that's in an open field or the like. Urban area like a shopping mall? Most likely, less than 100 meters. 200 tops. Residential area? 300 meters, if that.
4. Other features, not sure yet. multi channel for sure and that the frequencies can be changed. I believe that is what is meant by channels, but I see most are only around 22 channels, I did use a pair recently that basically the frequencies can be changes by .001 or something like that, and it was almost infinite channels, very small walkie talkies too, good quality, but I am guessing they were probably a few hundred bucks too.
Multi-channel for what may I ask? Radios that permit changing frequency on the unit itself without something like a PC programmer are not cheap. By .001 frequency resolution? If that's in the MHz range I don't think that is technically possible, reliably at least. Maybe in the GHz range, yes, but "471.001MHz" is not something you'll see in the wild. (Has to do with offsets and all that complicated stuff, I think for the 470MHz band the offset is like 12.5KHz, which means from 470.000, 470.0125, 470.0250, etc...)
5. VOX function might come in handy, but not required.
Given your requirements and situation described, I would skip that.
A channel is just a fancy name for a frequency. Let's presume MedCom (medical communication) channel 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are programmed into our radios because we...are paramedic unit. (I'm not, but just using it as an example.) In the programming, (we'll skip the repeater duplex feature for simplicity for now, and just say it's simplex where transmission and receiving occur on the same frequency) the frequency for channel 1 might be 463.000MHz, channel 2 might be 463.025MHz, channel 3 might be 463.050MHz, and so on. Because it's easier to say stuff like "Unit 23 switch to channel 4" rather than say "Unit 23 switch to four-six-three-point-zero-two-five megahertz", we use channel.
A note about those bubblepack radios: Don't buy them, unless you know what you're expecting out of them. "Privacy Codes" are a marketer's dream. There is not such thing as privacy on a radio unless you're dealing with concepts like encryption or frequency hopping; and both can be cracked by those with means. What those "codes" mean is simple CTCSS or DCS sub-audible tones that are continuously broadcast as one radio is transmitting. If any radio in reception "range" has the same tone, then it will open the squelch and allow the traffic through. If someone has no tone programmed, then it picks up all regardless of it's tone. None of this stops someone capturing the tone with a capable scanner (on mine it'll popup within seconds showing something like C123.0, which is a CTCSS tone, DCS would be like D143) and programming that into their own radio and now they're on your network. (More advanced folk will split their duplex freqs so one has CTCSS and the other has DCS, although that can still be worked around.)
As for what I can recommend for your area, you will have to do more research on your own because I'm not aware of the legalities of your area. This is a really good time to start reading up on lots of principles concerning radios. It's a very broad area as a hobby and there's a lot for pretty much everybody to tinker with. If you were in the US, I'd probably say a professional quality UHF radio on a GMRS band with your own GMRS repeater wouldn't be that bad -- although securing a repeater and a good location to put it (mountain/hilltop) can be a real problem. There's always other prospects like iDEN or Skywave (?) that bounce radio signals off the ionosphere (troposphere?) and can get good coverage but have their own problems to worry about.
Remember: there are five basic principles concerning radios:
1.) Location. Higher is usually better. This is the most important principle.
2.) Antenna. Better quality equals better reception and transmission, for a longer range.
3.) Receiver quality.
4.) Transmitter quality.
5.) Power. More is not always better.
You can talk to Japan from the west coast of the USA on one watt of power but that is with very specific hardware and setups. (Shortwave?) Bubblepacks fit into just about none of those catagories: they have terrible antennas, shoddy Rx and Tx circuitry (cost is their selling point) and reportedly, their transmitting power can be way out of whack (i.e. less than 300mW ERP on FRS, a hair under a watt ERP on GMRS. I read a report on that a couple of years ago).
EDIT:
oops...ten days old. oh well. I've seen six or seven year thread bumps so it can't be that bad.
