Powerful Walkie-Talkie recommendations?

JohnM100 said:
They are good radios and battery life surprisingly long. Very keenly priced too.

However the frequency range and power output of these requires a licence to use them; Amateur Radio (certain frequency ranges only) or other.

Even in the 446Mhz PMR band, their power output is greater than the threshold to be licence-free.

Just sayin'
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Thanks for that. I don't feel that anything less powerful can be relied upon to do the job, so will look into getting a licence - which I assume will be needed even though the radios will only ever be used in an emergency?

As you might expect, the instructions are pretty useless, and I don't know how to set it up for maximum efficiency. It displays two channels at a time and I have set it to channels 8 and 9, with 8 as the default and 9 as a backup, because a neighbouring farm seems to be using that channel. Is this the best configuration?

In case anyone reading this thinks I'm being paranoid, farming is the most dangerous occupation there is - machinery, livestock, weather and isolation are all major hazards. We use the farm as a horse rescue centre and although we don't have any mature stallions there, even colts, geldings and mares can be dangerous, especially when (as often happens) they have been badly treated. There was a horrific accident recently, a vet who I know made the mistake of going into a bull's pen. He is now totally paralised and the stockman, who saved his life, was badly injured but recovering. Their survival is down to 2 way radios. A farmer was killed by a bull a few weeks ago, and I knew a farmer whose quad flipped over in a field and trapped him, he wasn't missed until the following morning and when he was found he was holding his mobile phone - no signal so it didn't help - maybe a radio would have saved him, he died from exposure and had no real injuries but we will never know.
 
The two frequency displays: it can be set to duplex - transmit on one frequency and receive on another, but that won't help for your situation unless you only want the radios to speak to the yard and not each other.

Otherwise pressing the A/B button just switches between the two frequencies displayed - that may cause an issue for you as it's easy to press it accidentally and a call for help may be transmitted on a frequency that no-one else on the farm is listening to. You can set both A and B frequencies and tone codes to be the same or to listen to both frequencies.

The menus take a bit of getting used to and learning the mindset of the programmer. IIRC select your function and turn the volume knob to change the value of the displayed setting.

I have one but I have an Amateur Radio licence.

I don't know your farm or business but suspect that once you have these set up, you may well end up using them for more than just emergencies.

This link may help you work out some licence options.
http://www.walkie-talkie-radio.co.uk/information/two-way-radio-licencing-in-the-uk
 
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Since amateur licensing requires an exam pass for every user before they can actually buy a license and use the kit, that could be time consuming and expensive for a farm.
It might be best to set them to use one one of the 16 PMR446 frequencies on both A/B and rely on the remoteness on the location to obfuscate the radio's power output... :whistle:
 
JohnM100 said:
The two frequency displays: it can be set to duplex - transmit on one frequency and receive on another, but that won't help for your situation unless you only want the radios to speak to the yard and not each other.

Otherwise pressing the A/B button just switches between the two frequencies displayed - that may cause an issue for you as it's easy to press it accidentally and a call for help may be transmitted on a frequency that no-one else on the farm is listening to. You can set both A and B frequencies and tone codes to be the same or to listen to both frequencies.

The menus take a bit of getting used to and learning the mindset of the programmer. IIRC select your function and turn the volume knob to change the value of the displayed setting.

I have one but I have an Amateur Radio licence.

I don't know your farm or business but suspect that once you have these set up, you may well end up using them for more than just emergencies.

This link may help you work out some licence options.
http://www.walkie-talkie-radio.co.uk/information/two-way-radio-licencing-in-the-uk
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Thanks. If I'm reading your correctly, I should set both channels the same, to avoid accidentally switching using the A/B switch - makes sense. It might also make sense to ask neighbouring farmers which channel they use, because if we use the same then this would offer an extra level of safety.
You may be right, these radios could be useful for other communications, but they've been bought for emergency use.
Tori_T said:
Since amateur licensing requires an exam pass for every user before they can actually buy a license and use the kit, that could be time consuming and expensive for a farm.
It might be best to set them to use one one of the 16 PMR446 frequencies on both A/B and rely on the remoteness on the location to obfuscate the radio's power output... :whistle:
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It wouldn't be practicable for every user to be licensed, staff come and go and so do volunteers, but according to the link from John there is a "UK Simple Licence" that would seem to licence the organisation rather than individuals, I will make enquiries about this, as I prefer to operate within the law.
mrgubby said:
Worth a read :)

https://www.apexradio.co.uk/two-way-radios-for-farms
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Nothing much there, except for the reference to vehicle-mounted radios, which I don't think we need. From (other people's) experiences, radios mounted on tractors etc, although useful for worker/worker communications, may not be much use in an emergency situation because the worker may not be able to reach it.
 
The simple UK licence is £75 for five years.
The two radios you have aren't compliant with the band allocations for that license out of the box, but the programming cable is less than a fiver, and will allow you to make then so.
 
Tori_T said:
The simple UK licence is £75 for five years.
The two radios you have aren't compliant with the band allocations for that license out of the box, but the programming cable is less than a fiver, and will allow you to make then so.
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Thanks, ordered.
 
Well, our radio system has earned its keep.

I was driving our 7 ton telehandler with a heavy roller attached. Someone was walking alongside, allegedly guiding me (the roller is very wide and the space is tight) when she shouted "Stop, you're on fire, get out, run".

I pressed the orange button on the handset, which sends a very loud continuous alarm to everyone else on the same channel and wakes them up to an incoming urgent message. I then got out, saw that the machine (or rather hay that had collected on the transmission) was burning well and spoke. "Fire fire fire, main gate top field need extinguishers now" and about 2 minutes later the fire was out, with very little damage done.

It turns out that the handbrake had come on, possibly after hitting a bump. It isn't anything like the handbrake on a car, when it's on the machine becomes an immovable object but the machine was in first gear 4 wheel drive and had become an irresistable force. The result is that the transmission became incredibly hot, and all this happened after a maximum of 50 metres of driving . . .

We've used the system before, very occasionally, but just this one incident has more than justified the cost.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Well, our radio system has earned its keep.

I was driving our 7 ton telehandler with a heavy roller attached. Someone was walking alongside, allegedly guiding me (the roller is very wide and the space is tight) when she shouted "Stop, you're on fire, get out, run".

I pressed the orange button on the handset, which sends a very loud continuous alarm to everyone else on the same channel and wakes them up to an incoming urgent message. I then got out, saw that the machine (or rather hay that had collected on the transmission) was burning well and spoke. "Fire fire fire, main gate top field need extinguishers now" and about 2 minutes later the fire was out, with very little damage done.

It turns out that the handbrake had come on, possibly after hitting a bump. It isn't anything like the handbrake on a car, when it's on the machine becomes an immovable object but the machine was in first gear 4 wheel drive and had become an irresistable force. The result is that the transmission became incredibly hot, and all this happened after a maximum of 50 metres of driving . . .

We've used the system before, very occasionally, but just this one incident has more than justified the cost.
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PHEWY !!!!

Glad all are well and safe & situation handling went so well with your trusty radio system.......................perhaps a good example of a function that you hope never to need but when you do, that it "does what it says on the tin".
 
get licenced walkies, i have 3x motorola ones for use on sea ports when i go to and fro with a few team mates, dont use them much but you can get 3 miles on a good day.

forget the non licenced argos junk
 
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