Walkie Talkies.
 

What are some really good walkie talkies? I am not referring to the GMRS style ones either. I am looking for a model number if possible.
Thanks.

Um...the good ones ARE GMRS. Most people use FRS (channels 1-14 I believe) and more and more people are getting GMRS (channels 15-22 I think.) GMRS outputs at 3 watts (at least mine do) and FRS output at 0.5-1 watt. Much better range, much clearer.

I use a Motorola T7100. Big, silver, outputs at 3 watts (when on GMRS channels), and has never failed me. Rechargable battery packs it comes with are crap, I use AA alkalynes and have gone 4 games and still showing full power. Rechargable packs die after 4-5 hours.

I have the Motorola T7400, which is also GMRS... with the rechargeable packs, I can get about 12 hours of usage on them...

I use a Motorola SX750 GMRS, 27km range when on high power GMRS channels, has channels 1-22 with 121 sub-channels/channel giving over 2600 possible privacy combinations.

Yaesu FT-60

5 watts on all channels, 1000 memory slots, easy mod for UHF.

Time to upgrade my 5 year old Walkie-Talkie lol.

I'm looking at the Motorola one's... a bit pricey.

Anyone recommend another brand just as good but a bit cheaper?

Motorla 4W GP300 on GMRS channels, and a GP68, which is fully field programmable to anything in the UHF range.

Dunno if Canadian Tire have the same sales across country, but the ones around my part of Ontario have a sale on some of their GMRS.

and illegal if your caught broadcasting at that power on FRS or GMRS frequencies.

I'll check their website, thx m8.

I use a Chinese one, the PuXing PX-777+ (4W/1W power, 400-470Mhz).

Only used it a couple of times, but so far I haven't been disappointed (I bought it after reading much praise from HAMs, compared to other chinese models)

So is running around with replica firearms. :D

Not too worried.

P.S. If all your looking for is bubblepack radios, Canadian Tire, the Source or any outdoor store has them. eBay is a good place and I would stick with Motorola. I have a T7200 which is a pretty good radio compared to all the bubblepacks out there, but they don't make that model anymore. It was nice because it had scrambling built into it.

RANDOM OUTBURST! WAAAAHHHH!

Huh? Maybe too hung over but I don't get it. :hammer:

hahaha. You know how to cure a hangover... Just keep drinking... Come on, it's Canada Day.

What kind of range do i need to get?

It depends on where you play and who you play with. Bigger fields and more varied terrain need more range/power. More dedicated fellow players need more frequencies and codes to provide some semblence of secured comms.

Range is deceptive. There is a relationship between range and power output, but, terrain is king. For FRS and GMRS freqs which don't bounce (like AM) you need line of sight. If you have line of sight you can make a standard GMRS radio go 10km easily (2 watts presumed), but if you have terrain blocking you your SOL. Further to that if you have flat terrain but significant foliage then having more wattage (ie: more power, like the ham sets at 5 or 6watts) you can use the power to help 'punch' through the foliage but your range will be reduced.

In all cases line of sight is king, which is why if you're playing a game where you're on a team and doing comms, you always put your battle HQ and comms on the highest point in the field so that your comms officer has as much unfettered line of sight to all team members. I would always take a 1 watt radio with a line of sight position over a 6 watt radio with no line of sight. You can't really buy anything that will give you line of sight except perhaps a whip antenna, but then you're talking lower freqs that your not licensed to transmit on and can truely get into trouble for because it goes further, bounces, is easy to trace and will interfere with a lot of standard equipment (ie: people will notice you).

GMRS and FRS bubble pack radios wattage is set by the FCC and the CRTC, so pretty much all bubble pack radios have the same output power.

Scarecrow, perhaps I could ask you for more info if you don't mind. I'm personally looking for something (don't even know if it exists) that can listen to two channels and transmit on one, for squad leader apps. Any ideas? Something robust. I'm a bit new to radios, but I'm finding my Linton sometimes goes offline in the woods - need more guts. Thanks bud.

Both the Kenwood TH-G71 and VX-7R support channel priority mode where if you're on one channel and somebody open sqwelch on another than you designated as priority, the radio switches over to that channel.

The other thing you can look at is with the TH-G71 it has a PTT hand mic that has 3 macro buttons on it that let you slave them to either a feature or a channel, making it easy to switch from one channel to another. Unfortunately I have not seen such a mic for the VX-7R yet, but if I do see it I am going to get it.

If I am doing comms and need to watch two channels closely, often times I will just use two radios. Yeah, it sucks, but channel priority isn't a convenient feature if you're managing a net, its good for emergency or host channeling, but if you're managing two busy nets, two radios is the only way I've found to do it most efficently.

Good too know. Well, the two radio thing might work. I could set my Linton for close range apps, ie, squad level comms and use the Kenwood for HQ, assuming it has some oomph behind the signal. The Linton is compatible with Kenwood, connector wise which works out. I'm just trying to imagine now how I'd use the macro mic. I suppose, channel. When I needed to transmit to squad, it would necessarily have both radios switched to squad frequency as I relayed a comm. That might be the only time when I'd miss an incoming from HQ.

Out of curiosity - how do they handle the dissemination of radio comms in the military? Does the MBITR system account for any of this? hmm...

Pirate I am surprise your Linton is ahving issues, I haven't had any problems with mine and found it to kick ass from one end to the other at the North 40.
I am in the same situation as you, I am always on the command channel, so i can't communicate well with my guys but i always have my 2IC with me to send out info. I just bought another Linton from the last order acidfire is doing, hopefully soon I will have decent communication with all levels on the field.

I think its a decent radio for the price to be sure but I found on several occasions I was greeted with ominous silence while entrenched and awaiting orders, which meant I'd have to sneak away into whatever clearing I could find to re-establish a link. Up high, even far away like on the beaver dam base (vs New Telmark HQ), it was fine. I'm not sure if any radio would fare better, but since I'm in the market for a different feature set, I though I'd look.

I might also look at a model designed to take a flooding. A squad mate got his boots caught simulataneously in the muck on the bottom of the swamp and did a falling statue impression into it. His Linton = teh toast.

Do you have a long SMA type antenna? Sometimes I find the longer thinner 36" antennas will work in places the regular duck won't work in...

Nope, but if its something that might resuscitate my current investment, it looks like something I should investigate. That and the fact an MBITR costs around $7500US. No wonder the defence budgets are so high...

It seems the Kenwood you've mentioned is discontinued. I might try and track the newer model as my 'combat net' radio, and maybe splurge on a wireless PRR headset (as above), if anyone feels like doing some online shopping, feel free to post back any infoes... I gotta go to work, garrr...

Check out eBay, thats where I got mine...

Are radios like the Kenwood TH-G71 compatible with 'bubble pack radios'?

At the last OP, our team was significantly lacking in team wide communication, mainly due to radio problems. AFAIK, we all had bubble pack radios and many times it was very difficult to reach one another, eventually leading to a couple people just turning there's off.

The reason I'm asking about compatability is because I know not everyone (if anyone else) will be interested in spending that much money on radios, as OPs are just once in a while, so I'd need it to be able to stay in communication with the bubble packs, even if they couldn't reach me back that's an improvement.

Cushal, yes they do as long as you program them to the "bubble pack" radio freq.

I have a kensung one, which if I can ever remember where the hell I left the charger for I'll show it to you in operation. Or you can just check with most of the senior PDW guys who bought them a few years back on a group order.

Well
 

Our crew is using Garmin Rinos and have pretty scuccess with them and having GPS capability built in, comes in handy for not just games but on hikes and such. Not having book in front of me, I believe they transmit slightly higher output than a bubblepack radio.

I have access to a Gp68 and thats pretty good radio but not the most user friendly to program in my mind, unless someone has a dummy version for artillerymen!

So at games like at zone27 and the dogs pit in Montreal, when I am on the opposite side of the hill that is several stories tall, obviously completely blocking LoS and I can still transmit and receive 100% without any static with GMRS, I'm imagining things?

What about the differences between 0.1W, 0.5W, 1W, and 3W radios? I've had guys 100m away through brush with 0.1W radios come in all broken up. I've also had instances where someone two kilometers away in a city with a 1W GMRS can hear me clear as day (I use a 3W GMRS, at least the package says so) but his messages come in as pure static.

I've also run into situations where someone transmitting 5W on an FRS channel with one of the really nice radios just blew every FRS away. All transmissions came in as a constant tone unless they were at least 500m away through really dense brush. The further they got the more variation in the tone you could hear until you could finally make out the words.

My Motorola T7100 GMRS can transmit clear as day to someone 750-900m away (few airsoft fields will involve distances further than that, at least in the Ottawa/Montreal area) over several hills, with zero line of sight, with more than half that distance being covered with really dense brush so I'm happy with it and I snagged it for US$20 shipped off of eBay and get 40-50 hour battery life running on alkaline batteries.

pIRATE I purchased a longer antenna and it works a lot better

What about this:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1175388884051
or
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1171058471203

Lutnit - 900 meters is hardly a litmus test in this scenario. I've seen GMRS radio's that were essentially useless at 300 meters in the hills, and UHF sets that could blast clear across the entire field one minute..of course, you still couldn't hear the FRS and GMRS radios although they could hear you just fine.

EDIT: Now I see what you're saying here - Yes your right you get some bounce - but when I made that statement I was thinking AM vs FM and FM bounce is nothing like AM bounce. To hammers, FM is largely considered 'bounceless'

No actually you're not. Different brands of radio have antennas with slightly different gains at different frequencies - its natural to get variation, and also you can get some bounce, even in FRS and GMRS frequencies within or around terrain - but you don't get a lot because those freqs get absorbed more easily then say AM band, which bounces a lot more. That isn't to say you don't get any bounce from FRS/GMRS.

There are numerous atmospheric, terrain and radio interference sources that can influence transmission and reception distances. Many of them you cannot see and many of them requiring someone more knowledgable than me to explain. Suffice it to say that power is not the be all and end all in a radio. Its an important factor but antenna gain on receive is equally if not more important at the receiving end. Hearing someone come through in the clear may have more to do with the quality of the reception of a radio and the antenna gain than it does with the transmission power.

If you're too close to a transmitter that overpowers your receiver and the receiver isn't designed to handle it, you can get overpowering distortion. In a game where I am communicating with people on FRS or GMRS often times I put my radio into LO power mode (<2.0watts) so as to avoid this effect. Typically when I use the Kenwood. No so with the VX-7R.

Some radios are sophistocated enough to pick up reception and then judge gain quality and power levels and adjust subsequent transmission power as the radio is communicating with that station (I have that on the VX-7R) which also saves battery power. Some have this as an option you turn on and some do this automatically as part of the transmit/receive circuit.

Thats terrific, but there is more to the equation than that. If you've got the right conditions you can bounce a signal around inside a 1km box and if you have the right antennas you can catch those bounces as well. I doubt it would perform the same way with every brand receiving and I am sure leafy foilage at some point will absorb the signal even with no terrain features.

I saw this demonstrated when I tried the Kenwood and a Moto T7200 and used it in the same terrain up north at 800m. In the winter, it worked great up to 1.4km. In the summer when the leaves and other foilage is at its peak, I was getting breakup at 950m and unreadable at my winter distance.

I don't deny you're observing those results but it probably as much to do with local conditions and the receivers as it does with the transmitter itself. I would say that if you have that experience with that radio in that locale, then its good advice to go with for someone else in that same locale. Keep in mind it could perform totally differently in another locale.

Can you get away with $20 bubblepack radios? Sure. There are just more options with the ham sets if you know now to take advantage of them and value that enough to spend the extra money.

Text taken from another site:

Penetration and blocking of radio waves
Radio waves are attenuated by almost all objects they pass through, e.g. air, people, trees, buildings and the ground. Dense objects such as earth or metals block radio waves very well. Only a few feet of either can make radio communications impossible. ** However, radio waves also bounce off objects, and this effect can be used to allow communications around corners and inside otherwise impenetrable objects such as steel buildings. Higher frequencies tend to bounce and penetrate more, thus UHF radios are the most suited for work inside buildings and cities. There is a practical limit to this however, and beyond 400-500 MHz the penetration of radio waves starts to fall off again.


Sensitivity
Good receiver sensitivity is an excellent way to make up for low transmit power. Increasing transmitter power takes more energy, and thus translates into shorter battery life on portable radios. Increasing receiver sensitivity usually does not require more power, so this is a desirable characteristic. Most modern radios have excellent sensitivity. Sensitivity is usually measured in microvolts, also abbreviated as uV. The lower the number, the better the sensitivity. A good radio will have a sensitivity of 0.2uV or lower. Up to 0.4uV is acceptable for UHF radios.



** a ham operator once explained to me that it was even possible to bounce or attenuate radio waves in temperature inversion layers in the atmosphere -this also explains non-LOS communications in conditions that are seemingly impossible to explain -again things you cannot see affecting transmission direction as its attenuated and redirected through a temperature layer above your transmission point.

I wasn't saying 900 meters was a prime example of performance. Its just that I don't think I've ever found myself more than 1km from who ever I'm talking to in an airsoft game before and even if that distance is completely covered with hills and trees the cheaper radios work just great. Its just that a local Ottawa newb was talking to me about radios and because of something he read here on ASC he thought he HAD to get a $150 UHF radio, just throwing in a voice for the better cheaper radios. A lot of people think that unless its some hugely expensive UHF radio, its useless.

My dad is a HAM operator and he actually told me he did this once by accident because of extreme humidity variations between the temperature layers, nifty. Though I haven't talked to my dad about radio stuff for years though I did hear that you no longer need to know morris code to get your license?

I was looking at getting my ham license and there are two classes of license now, one with and one without morse code.

They have online tests you can take and there is a lot of electronics and stuff - probably a lot of it is out of date now. The tests were made back in the day when people made their own sets and had to know their shit or they'd end up wiping out channels for miles around them. I don't think the licensing truely reflects today's potential user of a handheld set. I'd rather have someone know how to handle themselves on a net than know what the colors are to a resistor (yes, thats one question on the test).

To be honest my airsoft experience these day is Muskoka and in dense bush with a lot of terrain, hence my obsession with a good set with a good SMA interchangable duck. I also like the additional features (programming from a PC/tactical headset and PTT, etc). Do you 'need' it? Well, I'd say thats the same evaluation you make on anything airsoft - you don't strictly need any of it. As I said though I do find it useful to be able to go out-of-band of the bubblepack radios for security purposes and many of my teammates have these radios so its a non-issue for us, we just get them and use them.

Bubblepacks are better in one respect - CTCSS is built in whereas on ham sets they have to be set manually. CTCSS is subchanneling or privacy (which it really isn't). I tend to go on n.0 channels on FRS or GMRS because CTCSS is such pain to program (even on the new radio).

'Compatibility' isn't a term I'd really use - all radios are designed to send and recceive so in that respect, they are all fully compatible in order to speak to each other.

The problem you were having was that someone was trying to use a UHF/VHF radio without programming their CTCSS to whatever the bubblepack radio was set to, so it appears that the bubblepack radio isn't receiving, when in fact is, its just the without the CTCSS tone, the squelch isn't opening.

If you don't know what I am talking about, research it and if your ears begin to bleed, stick to bubblepack radios. ;)

Scarecrow's pretty much covered it all. CTCSS doesn't really do anything for you, it should be shut off. It's more of a pain in the ass than anything.

One thing folks don't realize is this range of frequencies is probably the most useless in the entire RF spectrum. That's why they were given away free to use. It's not a great long range frequency, it's not the best short range frequency. One thing it is good for is aboard ships, the narrow wavelength tends to travel well through small openings in ship's bulkheads. Out in the real world it bounces off vegetation and gets absorbed by rocks and earth.
As for radios themselves, if you get a bubble pack, don't bitch about the performance of it. You get what you pay for.

Just looking at the Rino 530. Can pick it up locally (Calgary) for 389.95CAD. This seems like a nice price for a brand name piece of kit which fills two big roles both seemingly well. Can anyone with the advantage of experience see any drawbacks? (aside from the proprietary headset plug)

The only drawback is getting a BB hit on the faceplate causing a crack. It's not a big issue though, when I carry my Rino 120 on the field the faceplate is towards me in a radio holder.
As for the proprietary plug, it's not a big deal. I made an adapter for mine so I could use my Kenwood headset with it. The only problem is the unit doesn't support remote keying, so you need to use the PTT button on the radio itself. No biggie really.

I have a Rino 120 and virtually never use it.

Heard of the phrase jack of all trades master of nothing? Thats describes the Rino series. Its a great idea but it needs a better radio, a better GPS and a better display.

That being said I've used it with Claymore (he has one too) in games where we needed to draw our forces together to have contacts. We purposely play on opposite teams and then create conflict situations and use the Rinos to coordinate where and when the contacts occur - both teams not knowing we're actually doing that - and it works out well. However for team coordination I find gridding the field and using paper based op maps and radios and just asking for a locstat is easier than trying to fiddle with the GPS. Half the time we can't get a signal with the Rinos because the radio part sucks so much - even after the GMRS firmware upgrade that supposedly unlocks 2 watts.

I have to agree. I bought my 120 in the US. The output power is pretty much 2 watts but the radio portion of the unit is only as good as any other bubble pack.

One improvement they did make with the firmware was remote polling, so at least you could force a station that was unattended to give its locstat. Prior to that it was up to the user to poll his or her location manually. Of course thats only as useful as the radio range and reception. We bought them as a team back a couple years ago and Morb and I were trying to run a CNC with them and at a certain point we just look at one another and put the damn things in our packs and went back to radios and landmark locstats. After that experience we never went back to them again and instead relied on pre-gridded and coded opmaps and calling RTOs for squad locations. Worked way better.

What is my dream? A dedicated GPS unit with a kickass radio and pollable and timed datastream slaved to a PC receiver showing Google Earth or Garmin Topo Canada and software that stickpins and tracks every registered unit. Datastream updates every 5 seconds. Now THAT would kick ass in a CNC.

I know this is a little thread jacking but I use the Garmin 60CX, I hook it up via usb to my HTC P4000 mobile windows phone that has Garmin Topo Canada in flash memory, works super cool sometimes i don't even pull my gps i just use the PDA screen. (due to memory size I can only run one canadian region at a time on my PDA)

Sexy but expensive. The same way I like my women...

I use a fire camp + a rug :D

Hey scarecrow, double check the stats on the 530 and see if to you it appears to pose a significant change in possibility, at least as a radio. The 530 has 5 watts GMRS vs 1 watt on the 120, at least on the US model, which is where I'm currently sourcing mine.

I have a Garmin Etrex Summit my g/f's uncle didn't want and didn't have much luck in the trees with it myself, but again, its got a lot less in the knackers dept vs the 530...

Like you say, seems a bit too good to be true, but perhaps this version is a little closer to useful?

EDIT: Linkage - https://buy.garmin.com/shop/compare....areProduct=283

thx.

I have a couple of radios I use.
-A motorola cls 1413 more comonly known as the 1410 I guess, just that mine says 1413 on it.
-A motorola talkabout T5000
And a 3rd non motorola radio that starts with an A I can remeber the name at this point and Im not at home so I cant go look, it will come to me eventually.

I originally owned the moto T5000s for camping and what not and when I bought a throat mic that had dual prongs for a jack in I had to invest in another radio the CLS 1410 and unfortunetly found out that the jack in was about 2mm to short but decided to keep them anyways. Eventually I found a third brand of radio that fit my jack heads just fine and have stuck with it.

Ive never had battery problem with any of them, and the great thing about the T5000 and the one I cant remeber the name of is that there are battery packs that come in them, and when they run out you can swap them out to charge and replace them with tripple A's instead!

Do you have a source for this? I just got my RINO 120 and was looking through the updates on their website and it makes no mention of unlocking 2 watts.

A couple guys on my team run with RINOs and frogman headsets and swear by them. Now just about all of us are getting the same set-up so we'll see...

The sending/polling GPS positioning of my teammates is what I'm looking forward to.