The Rover-Landers of BC

Looking to invest in a communications system for my Defender when going on outings with the club but there are so many choices...

First - should I go CB or VHF?
Second - should I get a vehicle-mounted or hand held?
Third - what brand?
Fourth - how much should I budget?

Thoughts, comments, suggestions.....

Go for both. Also get a FRS or derivative (GMRS). Don't get a hand-held CB as the rubber ducky antenna won't get you more than about a hundred yards outside your vehicle. A Cobra CB can be had for about $125 new, another 75 for antenna. You now can talk to absolutely nobody except the group you are out trailing with. Now take a course, pass your test and get a HAM radio. Mobile unit is best with an antenna outside of course. That being said, I use a handheld (5w) but have it attached to an external antenna. +3bd gain vs. negative gain for the rubber ducky. With the VHF there is a much broader area you can cover, repeaters in many places and a whole community of other users as well as official emergency communications systems. With the HAM you can also go UHF and HF. It's common to have HAM on 6 meter, 2 meter and 70 CM combined in the same radio. My little HH (aka HT) is 2 M, 1.25 M and 70 CM.

While amateur radio has a pretty strong following of late in the club the majority, if they have radios at all, are still running CB - I'd start there.

Yes, definitely start with the CB. And in reply, because some one on the Island asked. Our radio club in Duncan puts on courses and examinations. There should be one or two coming up this fall. Usually they are held over a weekend, Friday night, thru Sunday and includes the test in there too. Most people (almost all) come away with a pass. Last class most had honours as well which gives you more frequency access.

Greg, and other radio experts...

I'm wondering if we should start looking into GMRS radios? I've heard the better quality units get much better range than CBs, a pair is quite inexpensive, (high quality units under $150 per pair) and they're hand held rather than mounted. I've used FRS a bit between vehicles that didn't have CBs and the signal is generally clearer than the CB communication, and GMRS is an extension of the same service (or at least available on a FRS/GMRS device).

http://motorolastore.esalescanada.com/M ... ms560r.htm

For those of us who haven't been able to get into amateur radio, might this be a reasonable crossover? Do the amateur radios also access the GMRS channels like they do the FRS channels?

Dave

Dave, Yes! Exactly, When we go out with a mix of vehicles we have a mix of communications, everything from hand signals to HF Ham. It makes it a bit complicated. FRS and GMRS share SOME frequencies and most (some) HAM radios can monitor those but not transmit on them unless they have been illegally modified. My hand held CB is useless inside the car with it's rubber ducky antenna. FRS and derivatives work much better frominside the car, probably because of the higher frequency. The CB with an external antenna SHOULD transmit more clearly and farther but it is all dependent on a GOOD antenna. Same goes with the HAM. The three most important things you need for clear transmission and long range of signal.
1) Antenna. 2) Antenna. and 3) Antenna

The higher the frequency the shorter the antenna but also, the shorter the transmit distance given the same power output/input. For instance new cordless phones for home use have no visible antenna these days because they are working at MUCH higher frequencies than in years past. They still have an antenna but they are so small they are enclosed in the case. Same with the GMRS family; stubby little antenna. With advances in battery technology they can put out more power (greater range) for a given size and weight with reasonable usage time before recharge.

If they made mobile GMRS units with external antenna, it would be a good choice. "CB" in many other countries has gone that route, i.e. UHF CB channels.

A normal HF CB should be crystal clear and have good range..... The problem is many people have bad antenna setups.

I do find my current CB setup fairly decent as the antenna setups in both trucks work well, and I just move the CB back and forth. I'm just entertaining purchasing a second CB so I have one in each truck, and rather than spending money on an additional CB I wanted to look at the alternatives.

There are sometimes complaints from others in the group that they can't transmit or receive, especially with hand-held CBs, and typically once a group is spread out over 3-4 KM (e.g.: dusty FSR roads) it's tough to communicate from the front truck to the back.

I'm wondering if the GMRS would stretch the range a bit in these situations. Since it doesn't require any special license or permit to operate, could it be a good fit for off-roading, somewhere in between the CB and Ham?

Unfortunately mounted mobile GMRS units aren't sold (illegal??) in Canada. Wonder if you can bring one over from the states and install it without getting in hot water with some governing body?

Dave

Maybe if you could get a vehicle mounted one. Do they exist? In Australia, they have a UHF CB band, close to GMRS and most use it because setup is more foolproof but in the end, range is not better than the HF. 5 watts is 5 watts. The biggest advantage is that there were repeaters setup, so you could get distance that way.

I have quality 5 watt GMRS handhelds. In the car, range is very short. Line of sight, I've done maybe 6 km and it gets touchy, but you need to be standing on a peak looking at the person with no obstructions. These 50 km advertisements are a bunch of crap, if you ask me...maybe on the water longer range is possible.

It looks like in the states they have a simple licensing requirement, which then allows you to use a limited function ham unit, (part 90 or 95, which I don't really understand), basically allowing 450 to 470 Mhz, like a Kenwood TK860H, programmed to the GMRS frequencies...

http://www.notpurfect.com/main/tk860.html

At any rate, these units start at 35 watts and up, rather than the .5 watt GMRS/FRS hand helds, so I would hope the range with the right antenna would be a lot better, but with that much of a power jump it may vault you into an illegal situation here in Canada as the only certified GMRS units in Canada currently are the handhelds with the built in antennas, which need no license.

BTW, there are 55 of the units for sale here: http://edmonton.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sel ... Z282713788 for $2000, which is only $36 a piece. :wink:

...and these ones are already in Canada!

You can get GMRS handhelds at 5 watts (not only 0.5 watt).

As best as I can tell 2 watts is the legal limit in Canada and mobile units are not allowed so it is all a mute point anyway.

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.ns ... 08202.html

I'm seriously looking at this one:

http://www.amazon.ca/Motorola-TalkAbout ... 122&sr=1-1

Amazon.com has tons of em for sale....but not the model 560 yet.

Getting back to Floris' initial question, I would still agree with John and Greg that a CB should be the first consideration, but for me personally, having a decent FRS/GMRS unit would come second, and if I'm still in need of more, then time to get my amateur licence.

cheers, Dave

PaulC wrote:Amazon.com has tons of em for sale....but not the model 560 yet.

From what I've read, the model 56x is actually the canadian variant of the model 35x, as 56 KM is equal to 35 miles.

Hmmm, in the US GMRS use requires a license and the peak wattage on the 35x models should be 5 watts to get the advertised range, so I bet if you purchase a 56x model, since it's the Canadian version, it might also have the wattage cut back to 2 watts... so how is it getting the range with only 2 watts??

So far I haven't been able to determine exact wattage of the models from the spec sheets for either the Canadian or US models. I would think, though, with the kind of range they're promoting they should be using pretty close to max legal wattage.

HERE'S a decent comparison of the top of the line Motorola US models. (I'm having trouble deciding on the wider variety of charging options on the MR350R VP or the additional repeater channels on the other models, or the waterproof/weatherproof features of the MS350R.)

cheers, Dave

I had several different Midland brand radios at NW show in Squamish. Being up on the ridge doing the "logging" show I could talk to Shaun down in the valley below behind a lot of trees, these were advertised as 50km units if I remember correctly and would guess we were no more than 2 or 3 km apart and don't think they would have worked much beyond that distance. The same radios were used the next day for the "wet" rally and worked ok around the gravel pit and water section but not so great once up and over the ridge. They were about $100 per pair. Don't think they would work that well on windy or hilly back roads, especially in a vehicle.
As Greg mentioned the antenna can make all the difference. For my handheld VHF radio when down in a gully I have a folding external antenna I set up in order to be heard which of course makes me less mobile.
Cheers
ted
VE7ZZV

Some one here said "5 watts is 5 watts". That's the output of a radio and yes, that is a measure of power but it isn't a measure (at all) of output from the radio. As I understand it, and in the simplest terms, the higher the frequency, the less transmission distance the you can expect. Couple that with the antenna. There is a theoretical "industry standard" antenna that other antenna are compared to. If brand X antenna has better transmission characteristics, measured in dB, then it may be +2, +3 or +4 dB better than the standard. 3dB being twice the output. If an antenna is worse, then it is - (minus) dB, a rubber ducky is in the minus category! Now use that radio mounted antenna (on the hand held, be it VHF, GMRS or any other) and contain it inside a metal box (your car), and you have handicapped any conversation you are wanting to have with anybody. So 5 watts isn't really 5 watts.

So- 1/20th of a watt can transmit 50 miles or more, given the right location, antenna, etceteras. Stick it in a metal box (your car) and in a gully in the mountains, all covered in trees with iron mines all around and you'll be lucky if your buddy can hear it in the car parked next to you.

Brands? CB- Cobra under $250 if you install it all yourself. GMRS- Pick one, under $150 a pair if you go high end, as little as $50 a pair if you don't. HAM- Kenwood, Icom- Yeasu- $250 to $15,000 depending what you want, realistically $350 to $850 for VHF & UHF combined. Saw some Hand Held ones from China for $45 the other day.

Thanks Greg for the clarification.

So one last thing I'm trying to figure out. It appears that these radios have 22 channels, the upper 7 of which are exclusively GMRS, while the others are either the original FRS or shared between the two.

Could be hype, but these radios, from several manufacturers, (motorola, cobra, uniden, midland, etc.) all promote the idea of better "privacy" by using privacy codes, effectively multiplying the number of channels by some sort of sub channel system for each main channel. I know its not really private because anyone in scanner mode can find it, however it does provide the possibility of us as a club using a certain sub channel and at least not being walked all over by other users on the main channel, from what I understand.

My question is, do all of these manufacturers abide by the same standard for the privacy codes? In other words is channel 21-5 going to be the same on all brands of radios?

thanks, Dave

Looks like I found the answer here:

http://www.athensarc.org/GMRS.asp

Scroll down the page a bit to see a comparative list. It appears if we stick with the major brands of Motorola, Midland and Cobra, and steer clear of Radio Shack and Cherokee (don't know about Uniden) we could all use the same privacy tones.

D

But if you use the privacy tones you can't communicate with someone using a dual-band set up in their truck.

Just a word of caution here guys.... if like us, you wheel on FSR's regular then do think about getting a VHF that covers the business band frequencies.

Meeting a fully loaded logging truck coming the opposite way is not fun.... and can be down right bad for you & your vehicles health.

We call our km's all the time, even at weekends as we've met trucks hauling sticks on Sunday afternoons. Times are hard for owner drivers so many work all 7 days, these days.

BTW, if you do go for a VHF bear in mind that 'commercial' rigs won't generaly allow direct frequency entry via the front panel, they have to be programmed by a tech using a PC. That's fine for logging drivers who just work a small area & only use 4 or 5 regular freq's but if your travelling from area to area then direct frequency access is very handy or carry your PC !

As an example, last weekend I put in 7 new road frequencies into my radio for an area that I'd not driven before....

Just my 2c....

PS.... the addopted frequency across BC for 4x4's to use is 146.460Mhz, I monitor it all the time whilst out along with the road frequency I'm travelling on.

LAD1-4 are also a good idea to monitor if your on the highway, the big rig drivers get quite ammusing at times & we've heard quite a few 'smokey' alerts too.... even a few 'she bears' :wink: