Yale or radio guys

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Anyone have experience with Gmrs??

I'm thinking of getting 2 sets of Gmrs for the family, inlaws(Midland Gmrs 2WAY Radio 50 Chan SOS Weath Scan). We(5 diff. houses) all live within 2mi. of ea. other out in the country, was thinking of getting these, giving one to ea house for Emergencies(lost phones for a week last big Hur.)

Sound idea or not?
Thanks, Chad

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Chad,

In addition to my ham radio license, I had a GMRS license for 5 years. In fact it just expired this past January. I was WQBY447.

The only thing I'd worry about is if those radios would be able to get through the trees between your homes. Two miles is a bit of a stretch for those little handi-talkies (aka HTs) when they are outdoors much less indoors which will most likely be the case for you. Keep in mind that while those bubblepack radios have claims of 15 or 20 mile ranges on them the reality is MUCH different. It's just not possible to get good range out of a low power radio with a low/no gain antenna like those.

GMRS is so much more than bubble pack plastic toy radios too. Your GMRS license give you access to REAL radios which can run up to 50 watts of power and also repeaters like the ones located in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Just like ham radio repeaters, these GMRS repeaters can increase your range sustantually over what is called Simplex which is direct radio to radio comms.

Now, higher power GMRS radios will certainly cost more than the bubblepack models you are probably looking at but you get rugged business type portable mobiles with higher power and the ability to use external high gain antennas. Hook a 45 watt GMRS radio to a power supply (or like I do, a deep cycle marine trolling battery) and then put a decent antenna up on a pipe pole on the side of your house and you will have no problem reaching well beyond 2 miles.

Of course, for a lot less money you could find a used mobile 40 channel CB, hook it to the same battery or power supply and put a CB antenna up about 10 feet over your roof on a pipe pole and cover the 2 miles without the hastle of getting a GMRS license. Heck, I've seen people selling old CBs for a couple of bucks at yard sales and a decent antenna and some coax could be found for about what you would pay for a pair of those FRS/GMRS combo radios.
If you don't want a antenna on a pole try a mobile magmount antenna run out a window and stuck to a metal rain gutter or even a air conditioner unit. I've done this before and it works fine.

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Thanks.. Food for thought. That takes away from easy/simple idea I was having:?
What ya think of these?

http://www.epinions.com/prices/Bass_Pro_Shops_Midland_GXT1050VP4_Two_Way_Radio

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Swampwood wrote:

Thanks.. Food for thought. That takes away from easy/simple idea I was having:?
What ya think of these?

http://www.epinions.com/prices/Bass_Pro_Shops_Midland_GXT1050VP4_Two_Way_Radio

Click to expand...

Nice pair but look, the 22 channels are the regular simplex FRS and GMRS frequencies. The other 28 channels are empty, no frequencies programmed into them. And the 30+ mile range thing is a fracking joke. Unless you are sitting on top of a mountain and the person is sitting on another mountain, then MAYBE.

I've seen the owners manual on these before. Here's the link-

http://www.midlandradio.com/Resource_/OwnerManual/160/GXT1000 Owner's Manual.pdf

Scroll through and you won't find any mention of what the High and Low power levels really are (thought the High/Med/Low settings are mentioned on page 15)but I'm betting no more than 4 watts on high power at the most. Page 21 shows a chart of the frequencies assigned to the different channels. I still have to wonder, What the heck is up with having 27 empty channels? Do they expect you to take it to a radio shop and have them program it with additional frequencies? Seems like a waste to me but who knows why they did it. ???????????????? Then they get into Privacy codes. Keep in mind that PL or Privacy codes just squelch other traansmitions from coming out of your speaker if they don't have the proper code programmed in. This doesn't stop any yahoo with a cheap police scanner from putting in those FRS/GMRS frequencies into his scanner and listening to you if he is in range. Calling it a privacy code is misleading. One good feature if you do want privacy is the voice scramble but anyone with another Midland GMRS radio can scan through the scramble codes and listen to you just as easily as you can. So it's not entirely private either.
I say, if you want to get FRS/GMRS hts to as a backup comm for your family there are models which sell for about half that price which will do the same thing. You spend the same amount and get twice as many radios. I'd look around for similar radios witout all the bells and whistles. Something like this for about 30 bucks- http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=gmrs+radio&cid=3665553294085016514&sa=title#p
Just my two cents. Hope this helps.