Looking for help from the braintrust here: If you flew into a wooded or mountainous location with friends and split up to explore for an afternoon, what would be your 2-way hand-held radio of choice for talking between parties? [Specifically not looking for In-Reach recommendations or sat phone recommendations.] What have folks had good results with? Thanks.

-DP

You can get five or (sometimes) ten watt handheld radios in either aviation band, Ham band, or FRS band.

Ham band requires a license, but if you go with a digital system and aren't hitting any repeaters, it's a moot point...nobody else will hear you. The radios can be a bit complicated to use.

FRS band technically requires a license, but there's no test (just a fee), and nobody is looking for people who aren't licensed.

Aviation band is nice because it's all familiar and you can talk to airplanes, but then airplanes might be hearing your traffic. The radios also tend to be more expensive, though I don't know why.

If any of these bands works better in vegetation, I don't know which one it is. What really matters is the wattage, and the quality of the antenna. Regardless of which radio you buy, the antenna it comes with will be crap. You can upgrade the antenna for around thirty bucks, and that will often double the range of your radio, though often at the expense of compactness.

While ten-watt handhelds are available, there is some debate as to whether that much radiation coming out of an antenna next to your head is a good idea. If you add a microphone and hold the radio at arms length, you'd have both better transmission/reception and lower radiation exposure.

Hope that helps?

Thanks Hammer. I gather that VHF has an edge over UHF in terrain. Is that your experience?

denalipilot wrote:Thanks Hammer. I gather that VHF has an edge over UHF in terrain. Is that your experience?

I don't really have enough experience to say, but I'm sure someone here does.

My friends use these when they go to burning man, they say they work great, but that's a large flat area, not wooded or mountainous. The reviews are really good though. If you dive in you can see people recommend antenna upgrades (like Hammer mentioned) and also reprogramming them to the right frequency ranges. They are cheap enough, might be worth a test.

BaoFeng BF-F8HP

I agree with everything Hammer said.

The Ham type radios offer the best bang for the buck. I have been a Ham radio operator since the early 60's and am amazed at what is available today and the absurdly low cost. Bought a Baofeng a few years back and it had worked very well.
Amazon has a newer one which is rated at 8 watts and comes with all the accessories including a spare battery and larger antenna which is a big plus.
Its only $45 and change,
https://www.amazon.com/Two-Way-BF-F9GP- ... merReviews

The only down side to all these is the programming is a pain. The whole key is to find a frequence on the 2M band and set that up on both units then LOCK them so they can't be changed accidentally.

Speaking from 35+ years in the 2-way radio business, Boafang is a piece of junk. They are cheap, they are not actually type accepted for commercial use, although they are frequently used for that anyway. Expect it to stop working the first time it gets dropped. FRS radios are a good cheap option for short range use, 2 miles or less. They are limited to 1/4 watt and a non-removable antenna. Buy them on line, no license required, all models use the same frequencies, and most of them use AA batteries. GMRS radios are a step above FRS, they are allowed 2 watts and generally are better radios. They require a license but it is simply fill out a form and pay a small fee, if you do not have the license enforcement is non-existent unless you do something really stupid like running a security patrol for a pot farm. 2-meter ham radios are a good option, they are cheap and reliable, but some ham operators will go mercenary if they find someone operating on "their" frequencies without a license. Also a good option is the small cheap VHF radios that are available on "itinerant" frequencies, Motorola Talkabout and Ritron Patriot used to be a pair of big names in that business, not sure who is selling what now. As for 8-10 watt portable radios if you find anything over 5 watts in VHF or 4 watts in UHF expect to pay a few thousand dollars for it.

We use the Garmin Rino for hunting. They are equipped with a GPS and you can load maps to it.
Find a couple of used Rino 650’s, they were built before the lower watt restrictions and have a full 5 watts on some frequencies.
They will also display your partners location on your radio’s map page.

Between my hunting buddy and me we’ve been beating on 4 of those baofeng radios for several years, he more than I. In backpacks and on ATV’s. He was a flight systems avionics guy in the USAF. The receive quality is pretty cheap and they are complicated, I have to lock them because I forget how to set them up when I put them down for 6 months. I use some goofy freeware computer application to program mine, forget the name of it but it works good. We get the longer antenna and we talk line of sight 30 miles easy in W. CO. Not so good in the heavy trees here in SE AK, maybe 2 miles. Can carry half a dozen of them for the price of 1 good commercial grade pack set. All in what you need I guess.

10 watts for $68: https://www.anyradios.com/product/tyt-t ... -antennas/

Not sure on the quality, but probably as good or better than Baofeng.

I've never used Baofeng, but I've met a lot of people who had them, then sold them because they were too much of a pain to program and use.

I went with Yaesu for several reasons: high quality, small size, a proprietary digital mode so you'd have to have a digital Yaesu to hear us (and even then you'd have to know our squelch codes), the ability to use repeaters, and you can easily modify them to use GMRS bands, but with five watts instead of two. Yaesu also makes a radio that transmits your GPS coordinates, so you can see the bearing and distance of all other radios within range. It takes some minor fiddling and the interface isn't perfect, but it will at least tell you what direction and how far the other people are from you, IF you're in digital signal range.

Though honestly, since you're a pilot you might want to look harder at aviation band radios, assuming you'll be using them in relatively remote areas without a lot of air traffic overhead. They'd give you the ability to talk to the mothership if someone is lost and you go airborne to look for them, as well as the ability to summon emergency help if you took the time to figure out which airlines cross your sky and what frequency they use.

One thing that all radio geeks tend to agree on: pick one brand and stick with it, or you'll go nuts trying to program different radios, using different menus.

I really appreciate the responses. Glad for the discussion to go where it will. But for my specific interests, I'm inclined toward something that is super-simple out of the box- Not really looking for something I have to program, or download computer freeware to use. For that reason the recreational 2W GMRS radios would seem like the most dumbed-down option for my needs. But I see some commercial-grade 5W VHF Motorolas that have pretty simple interfaces, and I've been impressed with durability of similar units. Any thoughts on those?
Thanks,
-DP

I've been using the Motorola hand held for close to 20 years and have always been satisfied with their performance and simplicity. I use them primarily while snow machining in the mountains and glaciers on either side of the Chulitna River. The first one I bought finally gave up the ghost about 3 year ago so it gave at least 15 years of solid use in wet cold environments in both mountains and thick forests with uneven terrain. The current one is a Talkabout T5920. Other than replacing the rechargeable batteries with AAs I have had no problems.

One friend of mine has the Garmin Rhino which seems to be an ok radio and an ok GPS. Not stellar in either department but if the others in your party have them, it is handy to be able to locate then on the screen and track over to them. They are too expensive for my tastes.

Last weekend I was snowmachining in the mountains and glaciers around Valdez and another friend had a BCA BC Link 2.0 radio that was picking up reception from others along way off and over other very steep and deep mountains and or valleys. Never saw any other groups that day but I would guess they were 3-5 miles out there somewhere. It has a remote mic that makes it easy to communicate without holding anything in your hand and also has a port for an earbud which most other do too. If I was to buy a new one I would look real close at that one.

FRS is just about useless if there is any vegetation or terrain. I've used these in Alaska using GMRS and we had decent contact over about a mile:

https://shop.motorolasolutions.com/t600 ... 2201GWRAAW

You need a license from the FCC for GMRS operation, but as noted above it's an online $10 purchase that is good for 5 years.

some VHF is in aviation band. and well The standard handheld aviation radio range is of a civilian band, which is from 108 to 136.975 MHz in RX and from 118 to 136.975MHz in TX frequency.