Looking for "walkie talkie" with greatest range

[mikefraz]

I'm looking for some budget options for comms. I'm looking for some handheld radios that have the longest range without having to have a CB license or any other type of requirement to use. I'm aware that the Walmart handhelds that boasts a "23 mile range" are going to be lucky to get a 3rd of that. I'm just curious on what is out there for some low maintenance/lower budget (under $100 for a pair if possible) handheld 2-way radios. Looking for an education on what makes one better than the other as well if anyone wants to learn me a thing or two.

 

[Spear Dane]

The range you get depends far more on the local geography than the radios. And there's no such thing as a CB license. Hasn't been since the 70s.

 

[mikefraz]

The range you get depends far more on the local geography than the radios. And there's no such thing as a CB license. Hasn't been since the 70s.

That just shows that I really don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to handheld two way radios. Which types require licenses/certification?

 

[spencer rifle]

Sailor will be along shortly with answers...

 

[foszoe]

Without any license. Range would be best with CB frequencies. 11m

For HT or Walkie Talkies, focus on Antenna for range. Then worry about Power.

I can do more with a good antenna than I can with an extra watt or two. Especially once you get above 5 watts or so. Ability to use SSB will also help increase range.

Sound quality will be better with with the FRS Freq band but if you are strictly after range, go CB.

 

[mikefraz]

Without any license. Range would be best with CB frequencies. 11m

For HT or Walkie Talkies, focus on Antenna for range. Then worry about Power.

I can do more with a good antenna than I can with an extra watt or two. Especially once you get above 5 watts or so. Ability to use SSB will also help increase range.

Sound quality will be better with with the FRS Freq band but if you are strictly after range, go CB.

A lot of that was Chinese to me. What is SSB? I was under the impression you had to take a test and have call signs and what not with CB radios. I also assumed CB radios weren't handheld.

 

[foszoe]

Single Side Band. Now don't take this too literally its more for illustration. The math isn't precise or anything but its good enough.

Think of radio broadcast as a water pipe. The bigger the pipe, the more quality of the sound coming out the other end, but if some air gets in my pipe, the sound will slosh around and the quality of the sound is lost.

So in order for the receiver to understand the sound at the other end, the water pipe has to stay full and that requires a lot of energy.

So imagine I shrink the pipe. I can keep the pipe full of water much easier. The sound quality might not be high fidelity but you can still understand it and the message gets through ok.

Take FM radio. Big pipe (lots of bandwidth 5Mhz), but great stereo sound.
AM radio. Not so big a pipe (measured in KHz) but I can still hear and understand it.

Now for SSB or Single Side Band.

Imagine If I take a stereo broadcast which has a left and right channel. It sounds Great, got a beat and I can dance to it.

Lets say I take just the left Channel or Left side of the band or just a Single Side Band. Its requires half the power to broadcast.

or since radio radiates, with the same amount of power, I can make the signal intelligible much further out.

Like a garden hose (walkie talkie). If I pull the handle so the nozzle is wide open (radiationg 5 watts), I am shoving the water out at the same volume whether or not I set it to stream or spray, but I can get my water (message) much farther out in stream mode.

No license for CB and there are Handheld CB radios.

 

[WETSU]

True. Sailor will tune you up.

 

[WETSU]

Before HAM, I found GMRS HTs to be pretty good for intrasquad comms, limited car to car, boat to land, line of sight only about to 1 mile or less, even with the 23 mile doobers. (technical term). But seriously, if you can talk, using quiet VOX at night, to a group of men 300 yards away hidden in a treeline at night and get them to execute an order, than I am happy.

 

[PistolBob]

10 year old kids pass their Amateur Radio Exams for a Technician Class license. You can do it. A UHF/VHF radio in the amateur radio bands gives you access to wide area repeaters. If you are in the Indy area there is a FREE Technician Class starting up on Feb 1st. You can check it out by visiting the Indiana Elmer Network website. Inexpensive hand held radios from China can be had from Amazon and about any radio dealer. Good luck!

 

[24Carat]

SSB +100 watt linear and a huge ground plane had me talking to Canada, Puerto Rico, and South America several years ago. Fun except for it bleeding in on neighbors and local business's PA systems and phone systems.

 

[SnoopLoggyDog]

Just picked up two used Kenwood TM-221A 2 meter HAM radios on EBay for $80. One for a base station/spare and one for the car. They are older 25 watt radios that should have good range for local comms. I wanted something simple that I could manually program in the frequencies.

Most people around here are jumping on the TYT bandwagon and using TYT-8000 hand held dual band radios for home and TYT-7800 Dual band mobiles for their base stations/cars. Local dealer in Russiaville sells them and even programs in all the local Repeater and Simplex freqs when you buy one.

Getting the Tech ticket was really easy and adds so much to understanding how to use your radios, to their full potential. Also good information on how to jury rig "work arounds" to issues with your comms, when the SHTF really does happen (tornado, power outage, ice storm, downed antenna, lightening strike, solar flares, chubacabra, ect).

Miami County Amateur Radio Club will be offering a General Licence class sometime this Spring. I plan in taking it, so I can move up to the HF world. That is where both the real long range comm capability is, along with the potential to spend lots of $$$.

 

[Sailor]

Before HAM, I found GMRS HTs to be pretty good for intrasquad comms, limited car to car, boat to land, line of sight only about to 1 mile or less, even with the 23 mile doobers. (technical term). But seriously, if you can talk, using quiet VOX at night, to a group of men 300 yards away hidden in a treeline at night and get them to execute an order, than I am happy.

Unless you want to find a local ham group for some training, just get some gmrs units mentioned above. Motorola makes decent units.

 

[Sylvain]

Can you use a UHF transceiver without a licence if you stick to FRS frequencies?

 

[Gaffer]

Can you use a UHF transceiver without a licence if you stick to FRS frequencies?

Yes, you can but keep in mind FRS will only be .5 watt. The FCC just changed the rules in September where you can now use several of the GMRS channels without a license (lower wattage, I think 2 watts).

I went ahead and got the GMRS license (it is good for pretty much everyone in your family). They recently changed this license to 10 years. This lets me use all of the GMRS frequencies at 5 watts. I picked some BTech GMRS-V1 radios which are FCC approved for GMRS and run at 5 watts.

Ron

 

[Sylvain]

Yes, you can but keep in mind FRS will only be .5 watt. The FCC just changed the rules in September where you can now use several of the GMRS channels without a license (lower wattage, I think 2 watts).

I went ahead and got the GMRS license (it is good for pretty much everyone in your family). They recently changed this license to 10 years. This lets me use all of the GMRS frequencies at 5 watts. I picked some BTech GMRS-V1 radios which are FCC approved for GMRS and run at 5 watts.



Ron

I meant can you legally use a 4W handheld ham radio (using FRS frequencies only) to communicate with someone who's using a 0.5W FRS radio (store bought "kid" walkie talkie) without a ham radio licence?

I read in some places that you cannot broadcast at all from a ham radio without a licence even if you stick to licence free frequencies such as the FRS band.
Because it's over the 0.5W (now 2W like you said) and it doesn't have a non-removable antenna like FRS radios need to have.

In other places I read it was fine to broadcast without a licence as long as you use frequencies open to unlicenced folks (like the FRS band)

Not sure if my question is/was clear.

I'm no radio expert plus the laws and frequencies are different in Europe.

 

[rvb]

I had a handheld CB radio... actually I think it's still buried in my truck console....
it sucked. talking from it to my dad's radio in his truck we only got like 1/2 mile. handheld-to-handheld would be even less. it's really all about the antenna, and CB frequencies mean a 1/4-wave antenna should be 9 feet long... so a 6" nub on a handheld is not much better than a resistive dummy load.

now most FRS radios have better range even on lower power. my wife and I use them when camping. can probably get 1/2 mile on low power depending on terrain, enough to cover most of a campground or at least a section.

contrast that w/ a ham radio (license required). a buddy and I bought new boafangs at the recent ham show... I got one for $20 and he was the big spender for the $30 model. I imagine these radios to have some pretty poor performance compared to the better (and more expensive) Japanese models, but we were able to scratch out a brief conversation w/ 5.75 mi between our houses. You can go to amazon and get a 1/4 wave antenna (~18" at 144mhz) which would make the performance greatly improved for another ~$9. Get on a repeater and you can cover some entire counties or more.

-rvb

I meant can you legally use a 4W handheld ham radio (using FRS frequencies only) to communicate with someone who's using a 0.5W FRS radio (store bought "kid" walkie talkie) without a ham radio licence?

I read in some places that you cannot broadcast at all from a ham radio without a licence even if you stick to licence free frequencies such as the FRS band.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think it comes down to what the FCC approved the radio for. If it wasn't certified for use on FRS bands, then you shouldn't use it there (because they didn't test it to verify bandwidth, whether it's bleeding harmonics off into other bands, etc). I don't even think it matters if you have a ham license. But again, that's just my understanding... I've never really researched it and will happily let someone come along and correct me. Me, I use ham radios for ham stuff and frs radios for frs stuff...

-rvb