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Trail Radios - What are you using

K30Blazer

K30Blazer

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this came up in the KOH thread but it should probably have its own thread.

Updated to include new video I just did on radio basics


When I went to Baja last year, my buddy and I wanted to have a way to communicate with each other and I had been looking at the Rugged Radio system for a while but could not swallow the price tag.

He turned me on to the Baofeng radios and I couldn't be happier. I got two, one in a 5w and one in an 8w. They have been perfect for my needs which is truck to truck traffic and basically a scanner. I can pick up all my repeaters in my area and all the SO, PD and FD traffic. Pretty cool.

Disclaimer - YOU NEED A LICENSE TO BROADCAST AND NEVER SPEAK ON ANY EMS STATION

That said, they are easy and fun to use and setup. I give one to my kids when they go exploring around camp or whatever and have peace of mind. You can get everything from FRS to repeater and HAM and they are cheap enough that you aren't worried about beating them up.

Chirp is a great program to use for programming although you can do them manually.

I have listed everything below that I have, in addition to a couple of things I am looking at.

http://astore.amazon.com/k30bla-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=7

All in all I am super stoked on them. I am sure there are tons on here that have waaaay more experience than me, but I will let them chime in.

Getting licensed

http://www.arrl.org/getting-licensed

http://www.hamradiolicenseexam.com/...9BmS8155AEQz7vRgYwK1xqLJIKKhfvl2lbBoCWKHw_wcB



51gegqBSthL.jpg


BaoFeng BF-F8HP (UV-5R 3rd Gen) 8-Watt Dual...

41iDhyl0i%2BL.jpg


BaoFeng UV-5R Dual Band Two Way Radio (Black)

41-Cf8ZsTqL.jpg


Baofeng Black UV-5R V2+ Plus (USA Warranty)...

with a decent whip antenna you have fairly good range (<5miles) terrain dependent

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Authentic Genuine Nagoya NA-771R 16-Inch Re...

with a mag mount antenna for your truck you can have even better range

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New Tram 1235 Black UHF PL-259 3 1/4" Magne...


and the unit for the programming

41jJ4A3JrwL.jpg


Baofeng USB Programming Cable for Baofeng T...


I use Chirp http://chirpsoftware.com
 
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no worries. I was blown away by how cheap they were that I assumed that they wouldn't work, but for $50 I figured I would give it a shot. The rugged guys wanted like triple the price for what has to be a rebadged unit. I added all my local frequencies and downloaded an app that gives me local repeater freqs that I can access when I travel. I only use the FRS to talk to my buddies when we are out on the trail etc, but I keep all the other frequencies programmed so I can monitor and the local repeater freq should anything happen and I am in a world of hurt.

there is so much geek to this it is not even funny. You can find more information than you will ever need, but keep it simple, don't broadcast (or if you want to get licensed) and have fun

http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/

I programmed pretty much all of these frequencies so I can monitor out at KOH.

http://www.mag7race.com/pdf/channel.pdf
 
CB's still work just fine too. They are just vehicle confined
 
Yea, CB's are great. They are a cheap easy option, the challenge is that not everyone will have CB's and people are moving towards the UHF VHF spectrum as prices have dropped on the gear. They also allow you to reach out further and offer a great degree of portability
 
That's exactly the problem with any radio. Everybody has to have the same one. Needing a license complicates it even further. However, I would love to have a radio to use in the vehicle or on foot and these could work great by just having an antenna cable and power cord available in the cab. Any real world experience how far you can talk in the woods?

The most important part of the install is the antenna mount (and tune!), which is the part nobody wants to do. So many types of radio get a bad rap on performance because people are using handhelds inside their vehicle. There's also a general perception that CBs sound terrible because all over the highways there's jibberish, stupid reverb boxes, over-modulated signals, etc. In my experience, the people I'm actually travelling with come across the radio sounding just fine, though.
 
The Baofeng radios are neat, I have one of the UV-5R radios and use it quite a bit. They do cover many frequencies that require a license to transmit and it is a federal crime to do so without one by the way.

An amateur license only costs about $50 to get including licensing manual and test session and you get access to those repeaters and the wealth of knowledge of the ham community. If you check with the Laurel VE team you can even take the test for free if there is a session near you.

On the radios, I wouldn't personally spend the extra money for the 8w radio. I tested one and never really saw a reason to have it. If 8w will make the trip, 5 will too. Doubling power doesn't net you a double gain, especially on vhf. Also your batteries will last longer on the 5w radio and it will stay cooler. A better antenna or external antenna will get you better gains than the extra power for the same price. I have the Diamond SRJ-22CA for mine and I'm really happy with it. You can also get an external mag mount or if you're dedicated, run a through hole or lip mount with a good external antenna and REALLY see some gains.

On the same token, I use CB for truck to truck coms and even some FRS. Hedge your bets! Don't put all your eggs in one basket! Two is one, one is none applies to radio too!
 
The Baofeng's are so cheap I bought 2 "good" units to use with my HAM and GRMS licenses and then 2 more of the REALLY cheap unit. I hand them out to people on the trail without CB's. My total investment in the 4 was less than $100.

The cool thing is all 4 will use FRS frequencies which has been handy when people have the blister pack radios.
 
My wife said I can't mount another radio in the truck. Haha. I'm thinking about getting an external antenna and mic for one of my handhelds to kinda split the difference.
 
mrk5 said:
My wife said I can't mount another radio in the truck. Haha. I'm thinking about getting an external antenna and mic for one of my handhelds to kinda split the difference.
Click to expand...

I have a 2m in the Xterra, a dual band will be going in my K2500 and I'll use a Baofeng in my K5 with a through hole mount and external mic so I can pull the radio easily since it spends it's summers topless! I'm going to build a "go-kit" to move between vehicles with a Cobra 75wxst if I need CB in either the Xterra or K2500. The K5 has a Uniden 505 mounted on the dash with a 102" whip on the rear corner.
 
Yea I use a mic and mag mount with my handheld. For 50w the $150 seems like a smoking deal. I was looking into a full rugged radio system and the price was crazy.
 
I don't like the Baofeng mobiles because of the menu driven squelch instead of a knob. I like being able to open squelch to hear better or close it to limit static on the fly workout a bunch of button pushing. You can imagine how those menus are after using a UV-5 radio for any amount of time. I've also heard of them running so hot that the fan runs is receive within a few minutes of turning it on without talking on them.

Take your $150 to a local hamfest and score a nice amateur radio then use the Baofeng HT for frs/gmrs. I got my IC-2100 for $100 with almost no use on it and my TM-707G I got for $150 with a repaired control board (squelch pot and lights replaced) with a 30 day warranty through the shop that did the work.
 
I'm on the second year of using Baofengs at my hunting camp. Last hunting season, I bought everybody one, along with a couple of spare batteries. I knew someone would forget to put theirs on charge, so I carry a couple of hot spares.
Along with a couple of spare radios.
When I programmed them, I put everybody's name in the startup message, so they could tell which radio was who's.

In this area, most of the hunting parties have been using marine band radios for hunting. Its illegal of course, but since the barge traffic is no more on the river, there is not any boat traffic in range of the hunting area. So, as long as they stay off 16, just in case, they seem to get away with it.
I have been resisting letting my bunch do that, and had been struggling with CB. Not sure what causes it, but my hunting area seem to be the "skip" capitol of the world.
Nice if you want to talk to Hickory Falls ND, with a stock truck CB like I have before, but pretty hard to talk a mile or so away when the rest of the country is coming in stronger than local.
I had a commercial license from an old business, and programmed them to use that frequency. As for the squelch, I programmed the squelch to a "1", the next to the lowest setting. Then I used digital PLL to stop the noise. Thus the squelch is wide open, but you do not hear any audio until one of the group transmitts.
Note: I tried "0" squelch, but even with the PLL, you get little bursts of static from time to time.

Since they support so many memory locations, I programmed in all the marine band freqs, all the FRS, and the entire GMRS band. That way, I can communicate with any other hunters in the area if necessary.

I also programmed the radio to boot up with the keyboard lock enabled.I know the guys I hunt with, and I don't need them pressing random buttons when they get bored on the deer stand.
Plus, without the keyboard locked, its easy to do something by accident when grabbing the radio or taking it out of a pocket.

Did not prevent Baitfish2 from walking up to me last year wanting to know if I could fix his radio. It seems that all the channels were gone, and it boots up with a message in Chinese........
Yep, he had unlocked the keyboard, and managed to hit master reset by mistake. Cleared out all the programming, even the language setting.
I just handed him one of the spare radios I had with me, and reloaded it when I got back to camp.

A couple of points:
One, be careful when mixing models. The various versions of the UV-5 are pretty much interchangeable. But, when you get away from them, you may find that parts are not swappable. I bought one model, and the battery and charger was different from all the others. Also when you go to hook up the programming cable, if the computer does not seem to see the radio, or if the radio starts doing something strange as soon as you plug in the cable, then its probably no pushed in all the way.
First, make sure the little cover over the ports is not hitting the cable plug, then take you thumb and push hard. You will probably hear a slight click and the plug will go flush with the side of the radio.

Some of the guys bought the little remote mike/speakers for their radios, and seem to like them.

I also bought the Nagoya whips for all the radios. Several of the guys bitched about them, since they wanted to carry the radios in shirt pockets or where ever, and the long whips were in the way.
No problem, I just gave them the stock short rubber duckys. They all came back and swapped back by the end of the day. They got tired of no one hearing them.
 
good information. I was on Search and Rescue with the Sheriff here in SB for years and learned radio etiquette and all the basics about how and when to talk, how to transmit etc, but the radios were all set up for me and the repeaters maintained by our radio team. That said, I was good at using the radio, but clueless about setup and all that.

I need to learn more and hopefully this thread can bring more intelligence to us all. That said, the radios were remarkably easy to set up out of the box and tuning the antenna etc will make a ton of difference but don't be intimidated by all the radio speak. It isn't that hard.

@TerryD, I heard what you are saying, kind of. I think for the basic guy like me who wants to hear team traffic at the hammers, listen to the SO and talk to friends on the trail the Baofengs are great. The "radio" guys will always want more crazier stuff.
 
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