Portable radios for communication

JBoyette

JBoyette

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I am looking for the common radios for survival and a base station. What are the most popular radios for team or 1 on 1 communication when the SHTF?

Fyi, this request is for brands and models. I have a project in mind for pouches
 
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JBoyette said:
I am looking for the common radios for survival and a base station. What are the most popular radios for team or 1 on 1 communication when the SHTF?
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Depends upon the distance. Locally, within a couple of miles, FRS is cheap and unlicensed but it is limited to pretty low power. There is GMRS which is licensed (I think it costs $70 or so) which will increase the range. There is always the HAM radio option, but that requires you to get a license / ticket. The cost is nominal in that you can take the test for about $12 and study materials are free. Radios can be from $25 up to several thousand dollars. One limitation on HAM is that you can't (legally) encrypt your traffic. Of course when the SHTF that isn't going to matter. When it comes to HAM you also have HF, which is traditionally distance but with an antenna lower to the ground you get what is called near vertical incident skywave. What this means is that the radiation pattern goes up rather than out. This causes it to bounce between the ionosphere and the earth over a range of about 50-100 miles, which is outside the VHF/UHF range.

So, if you want cheap, easy, close communications go FRS. If you want extended capability, go ham. The important part regardless is that your team needs to know how to setup and use the radios which means practicing now before SHTF.

A side note about some of the cheaper ham radios, like the Chinese Boafeng UV5R .... they WILL transmit outside of the ham bands, which is technically prohibited. Pretty much all of the ham HF band radios will too if you make what is called the MARS mod (mars referring to the military auxillary communication group) To do so, though, is a violation that the FCC takes seriously, but under different circumstances, well people can do what's right for them.

A note regarding whatever frequency you are using. In order to transmit effectively the antenna (basically just wire) needs to be the right length, 1/4 of the radio wave wavelength or a multiple there of. A random wire can receive pretty well, but in order to transmit and get the power into the wire it needs to be fairly well matched.
 
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@noway2 gave you a good rundown on what's what. I know of a guy who used two Baofeng units on FRS. He didn't receive well with the factory antenna in the mountains. Maybe a mile or so line of sight was fine, but break line of sight with geography and they got ugly. The antennas are replaceable as the radios are HAM capable, but technically you aren't supposed to have replaceable antennas on FRS radios. There's all kinds of nitty gritty rules surrounding these. The Chinese simply don't give a hoot about our rules. They make open radios, get an FCC cert that covers a small detail, then sell them in the US as "FCC compliant".
Crazy as it sounds there's imitation Baofeng units out there. Why clone a $20 radio? I'd suggest you spend a bit of time on youtube. Search "ham radio crash course", helpful presenter with lots of information.
 
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Guys,

Thanks for the information.

I assume my post is not very clear. So let's try this again on my end.

I have a project to MAKE POUCHES for radios. What models of radios do I need to look at?

Sorry that I was not clear at the start of this.
 
JBoyette said:
have a project to MAKE POUCHES for radios. What models of radios do I need to look at?
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Didn't see the pouch part originally in your post. Taking a gander .....
Kenwood HT: 2.20 x 4.72 x 1.33 in 56.0 x 119.8 x 33.9 m to 2.20 x 4.72 x 1.42 in 56.0 x 119.8 x 36.0 mm
Icom HT: 58 × 95 × 25.4mm 2.3 × 3.7 × 1in
Baofeng HT: Dimensions: 109.5mm × 59.5mm × 34.3mm

As you can see, they're all pretty similar in the range of 2.25 x 1.25 by 4 inches tall.
Yaesu and Motorola would be other good ones to look for. You can Google for the manufacturer + handheld (or HT) and then get the specs on models.
 
noway2 said:
Didn't see the pouch part originally in your post. Taking a gander .....
Kenwood HT: 2.20 x 4.72 x 1.33 in 56.0 x 119.8 x 33.9 m to 2.20 x 4.72 x 1.42 in 56.0 x 119.8 x 36.0 mm
Icom HT: 58 × 95 × 25.4mm 2.3 × 3.7 × 1in
Baofeng HT: Dimensions: 109.5mm × 59.5mm × 34.3mm

As you can see, they're all pretty similar in the range of 2.25 x 1.25 by 4 inches tall.
Yaesu and Motorola would be other good ones to look for. You can Google for the manufacturer + handheld (or HT) and then get the specs on models.
Click to expand...

thats because I edited after your post. My fault.

Thanksfor the info
 
Timfoilhat said:
@noway2 gave you a good rundown on what's what. I know of a guy who used two Baofeng units on FRS. He didn't receive well with the factory antenna in the mountains. Maybe a mile or so line of sight was fine, but break line of sight with geography and they got ugly.
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Regardless of antenna, that's pretty normal for VHF (Line of sight)

That said all antennas that come stock with ham HT's are meant to be portable first, efficient 2nd . There's lots of easy fixes, but it's good to remember that with very few exceptions , what's good at one frequency (2M ham) is NOT good at another frequency (FRS) , and what's small and convenient is usually more lossy than larger antennas.
 
@JBoyette will these be commercial offerings or is this just a personal project? If its a product that will be sold I'd like to check them out when they hit the market.
 
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