Cheap but good short range communications

[AJMBLAZER]

With any luck my wife and I will sell our house this summer and then there will be a (at least) three vehicle convoy going from Northern or Western Michigan down to the Lexington, Kentucky area. I have two CB's but only one has an antenna and a mic.

Basically just looking for some sort of cheap CB (or other alternative) that I can drop in the moving truck and the wife's SUV for the trip down. I figure we'll do the trip at the same time so they wouldn't need a long range as we'll hopefully never be out of visual range.

 

[pauly383]

ebay cheap 40 channel Unidens , or get some family radios in the skin packs at the electronics store .

Your best bet would be to all get licensed , and get 50 watt ham radios , but I doubt you want to spend a few hundred per vehicle , although its nice without the riff raff people around

 

[70jimmy]

I have seen handhelds radios for as low as 40 bucks a pair. Check out cabelas.com, sportsman's warehouse and the like.

 

[justwhatido]

radio shack

Buy the smallest (cheapest) with magnetized antennas. They should sell a mic really cheap also.

That will be most effective, and you can always sell them on here for enough to offset most of the cost.

 

[Leper]

Yup. Cheap Cobra with a magnetic antenna mount is the way to go.

As said above, you can get 3 mile, line-of-sight, in the blister pack for real cheap!

Ebay baby!!!
http://cgi.ebay.com/LOT-OF-10-COBRA...ryZ20382QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[AJMBLAZER]

That's not bad at all.


So showing my complete lack of radio knowledge...are those ebay radio's using the same frequencies as my CB's? I pull them off the shelf when I go offroading, tune them to the channel the trail leader says, yak on them for a few hours, then come home and put them back on the shelf. That's about it.
Oh, and how's the battery lifespan on those?

 

[pauly383]

NO , those blister pack radios are a much higher frequency , its closer to police frequencies than CB frequencies .

If you want a handheld CB , try Ebay . I got my portable CB for emergency loaner on trails from Ebay .

 

[AJMBLAZER]

That's sorta what I figured. Thanks man.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Just an update but thanks go to Jagged for cluing me into these over on www.unidendirect.com :

http://www.unidendirect.com/itemdetail.cfm?item=B-GMR1035-2&tabid=1

Some pretty good prices over there. Ended up buying two sets and with shipping it wasn't $30.

Thanks again Jagged.