I’ve put off posting this for a while. I like researching things and figuring them out for myself. I have an ingrained aversion to asking out loud what I can figure out on my own. I am getting to the point now where it seems I may never get there on my own on this one however. The deeper I dig, the more options (and opinions) there are. It is time to break down and ask. I will try and be as specific as possible.
I am looking to pick up 4 to 6 portable radios.
I want to have these on hand for emergency comms, mostly among just my group, and mostly within a range of a couple of miles or less. Within that range however I am after the most reliable comms reasonably achievable.
Heavily forested very hilly terrain with a lot of granite. Possible use in ‘neighborhood’ terrain of the same hills and stone, just less trees and more houses.
I need them to be as near indestructible as is reasonably possible. Rain, snow, rough treatment, what have you, they need to work when I need them to.
I need them to be capable of using some form of external mic and earpiece for mostly hands free operation. PTT or VOX.
I have my tech license, but am open to and fully capable of upgrading if it is in my interest to do so. For the sake of this convo, let’s ignore any other HAM related stuff and assume my sole interest is verbal comms within my local team.
I don’t care about buying and maintaining a GMRS ticket if that’s the best route.
I am a technically very capable person. I am fully capable of figuring out programming and setup of just about anything. However, once I have done so, I want to be able to hand these off to other people for them to use with minimal instruction (let’s assume for the sake of simplicity that these people are not complete morons and can handle some basic instruction).
I think all of this pretty much eliminates all the ‘crap’ options, but just to be sure, I am not interested in crap. I don’t want to spend $1000 or more per radio if I don’t need to, but budget is not a main driver. If I can’t afford what I need, I can accept that. What I don’t want, is to spend a single dollar on anything that is going to sit on a shelf because it doesn’t do what I need it to do.
Was I sufficiently long winded?
Ideas?
I am looking to pick up 4 to 6 portable radios.
I want to have these on hand for emergency comms, mostly among just my group, and mostly within a range of a couple of miles or less. Within that range however I am after the most reliable comms reasonably achievable.
Heavily forested very hilly terrain with a lot of granite. Possible use in ‘neighborhood’ terrain of the same hills and stone, just less trees and more houses.
I need them to be as near indestructible as is reasonably possible. Rain, snow, rough treatment, what have you, they need to work when I need them to.
I need them to be capable of using some form of external mic and earpiece for mostly hands free operation. PTT or VOX.
I have my tech license, but am open to and fully capable of upgrading if it is in my interest to do so. For the sake of this convo, let’s ignore any other HAM related stuff and assume my sole interest is verbal comms within my local team.
I don’t care about buying and maintaining a GMRS ticket if that’s the best route.
I am a technically very capable person. I am fully capable of figuring out programming and setup of just about anything. However, once I have done so, I want to be able to hand these off to other people for them to use with minimal instruction (let’s assume for the sake of simplicity that these people are not complete morons and can handle some basic instruction).
I think all of this pretty much eliminates all the ‘crap’ options, but just to be sure, I am not interested in crap. I don’t want to spend $1000 or more per radio if I don’t need to, but budget is not a main driver. If I can’t afford what I need, I can accept that. What I don’t want, is to spend a single dollar on anything that is going to sit on a shelf because it doesn’t do what I need it to do.
Was I sufficiently long winded?
Ideas?
