Anyone use two way radios and can offer advice?

rob-nikon

rob-nikon

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I've been thinking of picking up a couple of two way radios but I'm not sure what to go for. Next month I'm off to a B&B for red squirrels where there is no mobile signal. The grounds of the B&B are quite large so I can't see all of the different feeding locations at once, there are so many times when I've walked between locations only for the squirrels to be spotted at other locations and I miss them. My solution is to this is to leave one radio with my wife or the B&B owners (who are always letting me know when they spot the squirrels). They would be useful in other situations when out photographing with friends too.

What does range mean? Is it measured for the perfect line of sight situation rather than a real life situation?
How important is having lots of channels?

I'm currently looking at the basic model (binatone latitude 100) or maybe the higher model (binatone action 1100 or terrain 750). Is the higher model worth the extra cost?
 
The cheap Binatones are ok Rob, used them for fishing with mates in the past. The general range can be hampered by trees etc but have managed to wander quite some distance and maintain contact. Occasionally they pick up truck frequencies so then change channel, they're simple to use.
 
Unless things have changed all of the PMR 446 radios are 500mw output power so range will be much the same, unless one brand has a more efficient antenna, over that they used to require a licence, however people do mod them and up to power even as high as 5w is some cases, then they go for miles!

I use a good few of the 500mw licence free radios and they do work very well, even from building to building spaced at 400 meters or more, 446Mhz tends to penetrate walls fairly well. I'd say you would have no problem given what you wish to do, give you an idea I have Icom and Lidi PMR446 handhelds and they both are equal, unless you boost the Icom that is ;)

Some radios have a function where you can open the squelch and listen for weak signals, also don't use the tone squelch (CTCSS) if your signal is poor, in other words just use a simple channel number like 1 and no code. However if you pick up other radios and signal is good, you can use a code like chan 1 code 4 and you will only hear people with the same code, the radios send a tone code to each other to open the squelch so you have a more private channel, those who do not use a code can still here you, it's not private.
 
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The PMR446 radios vary in quality but the range is much the same for all of them. The advantage is if friends have them you can all keep in touch. The disadvantage is everyone can hear the conversations. They're generally great value for money.

There lots of other radios on different frequencies available on ebay etc but they all require licences of a sort and though there's maybe little chance of anyone challenging you it's possible that you may be on someone's licenced frequency. eg you wouldn't want to use radios on the same frequencies Coastguard or Mountain Rescue.
 
I've bought and used (with others obviously) about 20 Cobra PMR446 radios and found them to be relatively cheap if you shop around and work well - better than the more expensive Motorolas we have used. Over the past 10 years we've used them twice a week for several hours in countryside.
 
Livin The Dream said:
The cheap Binatones are ok Rob, used them for fishing with mates in the past. The general range can be hampered by trees etc but have managed to wander quite some distance and maintain contact. Occasionally they pick up truck frequencies so then change channel, they're simple to use.
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I'm thinking the cheaper ones may be good enough for me, I don't need a range of miles, maybe up to 1km.

Malco said:
I bought a set of these from Amazon for a recent holiday;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Binatone-Ac...&qid=1439602814&sr=8-1&keywords=binatone+1100

I found them to be excellent, especially for the price. The range was probably nowhere near what they quoted, but was certainly very acceptable over 1 - 2 kms.
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Those are some of the ones I was looking at. It's out of the binatones either the 100's or 1100's you have.
 
arthurbikemad said:
Unless things have changed all of the PMR 446 radios are 500mw output power so range will be much the same, unless one brand has a more efficient antenna, over that they used to require a licence, however people do mod them and up to power even as high as 5w is some cases, then they go for miles!

I use a good few of the 500mw licence free radios and they do work very well, even from building to building spaced at 400 meters or more, 446Mhz tends to penetrate walls fairly well. I'd say you would have no problem given what you wish to do, give you an idea I have Icom and Lidi PMR446 handhelds and they both are equal, unless you boost the Icom that is ;)

Some radios have a function where you can open the squelch and listen for weak signals, also don't use the tone squelch (CTCSS) if your signal is poor, in other words just use a simple channel number like 1 and no code. However if you pick up other radios and signal is good, you can use a code like chan 1 code 4 and you will only hear people with the same code, the radios send a tone code to each other to open the squelch so you have a more private channel, those who do not use a code can still here you, it's not private.
Click to expand...

Derek_W said:
The PMR446 radios vary in quality but the range is much the same for all of them. The advantage is if friends have them you can all keep in touch. The disadvantage is everyone can hear the conversations. They're generally great value for money.

There lots of other radios on different frequencies available on ebay etc but they all require licences of a sort and though there's maybe little chance of anyone challenging you it's possible that you may be on someone's licenced frequency. eg you wouldn't want to use radios on the same frequencies Coastguard or Mountain Rescue.
Click to expand...

Thanks for replying, I wasn't aware of licensing and I definitely don't want to pick up and interfere with other radio frequencies such as the police, coastguard and mountain rescue.

Are PMR446 the general radio type for the low range, open consumer hand held two way radios? Is the difference between manufacturers more build quality or are they all roughly the same?
 
sphexx said:
I've bought and used (with others obviously) about 20 Cobra PMR446 radios and found them to be relatively cheap if you shop around and work well - better than the more expensive Motorolas we have used. Over the past 10 years we've used them twice a week for several hours in countryside.
Click to expand...
Thanks I will have a look at those as I did seem before.
 
Yes PMR446 at 500mw is licence free, I doubt anyone would ever discover radios that are over that power. TBH it's a great frequency and works very well, very useful things to have around and cheap too.
 
Malco said:
I bought a set of these from Amazon for a recent holiday;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Binatone-Ac...&qid=1439602814&sr=8-1&keywords=binatone+1100

I found them to be excellent, especially for the price. The range was probably nowhere near what they quoted, but was certainly very acceptable over 1 - 2 kms.
Click to expand...
Can you plug in an ear piece with a talk button like this one below into the action 1100 sets?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Comtech-CM-...r=1-2-fkmr1&keywords=Comtech+CT-10VX+Headsets
 
We bought a set of the cheaper ones for covering motor cycle scramble events, they worked quite well, in the open we got about a mile and a half (roughly) in built up areas or trees more like half a mile-ish. Keep in mind the cheaper ones pretty much all work ona limited number of bands, you may get other people using the same bands.
 
I use three 'Binatone Action 950's' and they work well without issue
 
I use cobra branded once, range is good, battery life is great, it has plenty of channels, in different bands, so you can be private, (unless someone stumbles on to the same frequency)

But as with all, it's light of sight, things like hills, mountains, etc will effect reception
 
The main benefit of the more expensive radios is they are better made and may be waterproof but they're so much more expensive if you lose one. I think in most cases the likes of the Binatone and Cobra models are good enough for everyday use and won't disappoint you.

I wasn't aware that there were more than 8 channels available so I looked it up and found there's been a proposed increase in the PMR446 allocation to include 16 digital channels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMR446. I've no idea how there's hundreds of channels available in the newer models but it may be the way they define a channel.
 
Derek_W said:
The main benefit of the more expensive radios is they are better made and may be waterproof but they're so much more expensive if you lose one. I think in most cases the likes of the Binatone and Cobra models are good enough for everyday use and won't disappoint you.
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One difference I've noticed it the more expensive binatone models allow you to connect an ear piece/headset. For me that could be good future expansion if I find I would like to reduce the visibilty of using radio comms.

Derek_W said:
I wasn't aware that there were more than 8 channels available so I looked it up and found there's been a proposed increase in the PMR446 allocation to include 16 digital channels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMR446. I've no idea how there's hundreds of channels available in the newer models but it may be the way they define a channel.
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I'm guessing they have worked out a way of splitting the main 8 channels down into additional subgroups. When they arrive I will try to find out more and update this thread.
 
Each of the 8 codes is split into 8 (I think) ctss codes so you can use 2.1, 2.2 and so on. I think if two people are using, say, 7.7 then a third person with the basic 8 codes can hear them on 7 but not communicate with them.
 
I have received the binatone actions 1100, they seem quite good and in great condition for refurb units. After reading the manual I thought I would explain the 968 channel combinations that was mentioned earlier in the thread. There are 8 main channels, each channel has 38 CTCSS sub channels and there is an additional 83 DCS advanced digital codes per main channel to allow more secure private communication. So you can them as 1-8.1-38.1-83 giving the 968 channel combinations. The CTCSS and DCS can both be turned off if you don't want to use them. If you are only using the main channel and CTCSS sub group (DCS turned off) other people can hear your transmission if they don't have sub channels os the sub channel function is turned off. It does not say anything about if others are able to hear your conversations if CTCSS and DCS are both used.
 
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rob-nikon said:
It does not say anything about if others are able to hear your conversations if CTCSS and DCS are both used.
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These codes are only flags for a given transmission. By entering the codes these handsets only transmit and listen out for transmissions with that specific tone code. Think of it as a filter; it's not encryption as the voice is still transmitted in the clear.

For example a scanner will pick up all the transmissions on that frequency and can listen in, regardless of the CTCSS/DCS tone code.

John.
 
As John says, CTCSS is a set of tones that is transmitted before each transition starts and opens another radios squelch that's set to the same code, squelch is normally used to stop radio noise being heard when your not transmitting I.e the crackle or fuzz, or the ant race on an old TV haha, in the old days you had a knob that you turn to increase the squelch, this would then require a stronger signal to open the squelch of a listening radio before transmitions could be heard, down sides were if your squelch was set to high you'd not hear your buddy calling if his signal was weak, tone squelch was used to solve this problem, in other words a morse code style tone was sent when the radio was keyed to open up the squelch on the receiving radio so signals or communication could be heard, it was soon relised that different codes could be used to separate different groups of people, if you listen to a tone/CTCSS set radio you can hear the codes before each transmition. Hence tone squelch, or CTCSS. :)
 
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A quick update, the radios worked perfectly in the Lake District. The sound quality was excellent, no hissing a shorter distances. They were a little bit noisy at longer ranges when trees, building and hills were in the way. Overall they were excellent for £25, I was really impressed with them and really helped too.
 
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