Tron

I'm going to do one for myself anyway. I link various radio systems up over the internet (RoIP) and 446 is one of the standards that I play with. I'm toying with the idea of: small manpack sized case crazy big lead acid battery backup IEC kettle lead socket to an inbuilt mains power supply / charger custom display behind toughned glass water proof speaker grill with nice big 8w driver (big volume) feed the driver with a decent amplifier Have the audio go through a bandpass filter tailored to human speech (rejects SOME noise) 4 pin CB style mic connector, some type of clansman telephone handset connector and maybe more Line level audio out for recording Inbuilt speech inversion USB comms for connection to onboard USB soundcard and serial control of PTT (RoIP) All controls will be anti vandal ruggedised. Front and rear mounted N-type and BNC connectors for RF The most expensive part will be a CRAZY narrow band notch filter for RF to help the RX a little. Its gonna be "propper bo" I tell thee.

I'm not really thinking of a business as such. I know for a fact that there wouldn't be enough money in it to pay my rent anyway. And yes, you're right about turning a hobby which is fun into pain in the mag pouch. How much will people pay? Well I can see people on here with genuine SUSAT and ACOG sights mounted to the top of airsoft weapons that have a range which I would have thought would fall below the minimum setting of the horizontal graticule of these systems. This indicates to me that people take this quite seriously. I deployed to Irag with iron sights believe it or not, so ACOG sights for airsoft are a bit extravagent no? However, if people get enjoyment from modifying their rig, or satisfaction from obtaining and setting up such systems, and paying so much attention to every detail, who am I to question their enjoyment? In MY experience, people will use watever old crap they are fed, so long as they don't know any better. There are multiple threads on here and all the other forums where people fail to understand CTCSS usage and think that 500mW is 500 Watts. Its a fairly complex subject, and not to everyones liking. And so, people think that an Argos binatone will be ok for airsofting, when it is anything BUT, judging by peoples comments of "I plugged this in and it doesn't work" "how can I get more range" "my radio is dead". Airsoft is quite a "robust" hobby. Your kit takes a kicking. If someone made a 446 unit with a solid aluminum case, rugged connectors, 3ah lead acid, speech inversion, removable antenna and a decent, sensitive front end, I would buy one, and so would every one else. No one DOES though, do they?

I saw their kit and it LOOKED a bit "plastic". Has anyone actually played with this kit to see what it is like? As Baz said above, they look like baofeng / quangsheng / matsushita in a brittle plastic case.

Selling loads of PRR's on Ebay. Seems legit. Ah well, as tax payers, we have already paid for them eh? I'll fire him an email and see what occurs. Wait out.

Lets face it, the Motorola GP380 is BEGGING to be converted into a PRC152 or similar The GP380 could be programmed to 446 channels, and on low power (1 Watt) wouldn't hurt anyone in reality. However, to stay within the letter of the law, a licence would be required, and if going down that route, a separate frequency / selection of frequencies would make sence. Again, just throwing ideas out there so you guys can chew it up and point out any problems.

This is basically what I'm aiming for in the long run.. I am trying to establish some facts, figures and ideas first. If you are going down the British army route in terms of gear, then PRR IS the most accurate bit of kit for inter team comms. PRR was ONLY designed so that team members don't have to SHOUT fire control orders. It was never intended to do any kind of distance. 446 into PRR would be easy. I just need a source for the PRR case and a decent 446 donor. Strip them both and start hacking dials and knobs. The problem is .. 446. To stick within the 446 standard, you can't have more than 500 milli Watt (500mW) which is half of a Watt output power. The restriction on fixed antennas was lifted some time ago. More to follow.. You guys are replying faster than I can spill the contents of my peanut / brain!

From what I understand, there aren't many of you who are "loners". Mostly, you belong to a club / group and (mostly) go to pre-arranged games at fairly well organised sites. VCRA has, to some extent reduced the number of "call of duty" kiddies (or their parents) from buying toys they don't understand. You guys stay on the right side of the blue line (as you always HAVE done) and so apart from a little paper work, the law hasn't really affected your hobby. How about the same kind of initiative on the radio side of things? It doesn't have to involve anyone apart from ourselves. 446 doesn't QUITE cut it does it? The handsets are almost too delicate for what you use them for and the RF characteristics are not great. They have quite low power AND (because they are mostly built as toy radios) are quite deaf as well. The club/group is mobile, so could go anywhere in the world. A licence for radio that does the same is BLOODY expensive. The venues are fixed position, and a fixed position licence is FAR cheaper. How about suggesting to the venues that they obtain a UHF licence with 2 frequencies? One is for team 1 and the other is for team 2. Visiting teams could rent radios from the site (pays for licence) or buy their own. If a team buys radios, they could buy something like a Motorola GP380 (serious shit) for about £150 each. My youngest GP380 is 12 YEARS old, and I would happily take it to Afghan tomorrow. Oh, and when I got home, I'd cover it in fairy liquid, and hit it with a toothbush under a hot running tap. The point is, the radio would still be working when you die of old age. There are cheaper radios out there.. I'm just throwing ideas about at this stage. Thoughts?

Decent headset: We still had quite a lot of clansman kit when I left. We were seeing the odd bit of Bowman pop up from time to time such as PRR. The headset that came with the PRR was the only bit of kit that had that headset at the time (as far as I saw) so I shall refer to it as "the bowman headset" Everyone uses these style of headsets now. There seems to be a million different types in circulation. Is this what you meant? The ones I used (real steel) were lightweight, unbreakable, submersible (I fell in a river to test) and made your ear and cheek sweat like a %$£*. Personally, if I was going to go down this route, I would buy genuine Bowman from ebay, There is some terrible quality shite coming from china, and I'd rather spend £40 on something that works, than £10 on something that breaks 5 minutes into the first skirmish. The issue would be converting from Bowman connectors to your choice of radio. A simple adaptor cable could be made with your choice of PTT (if you want an external PTT).

Hi guys.. Just joined here as I have lurked for long enough! Background: Ex- British Army (Royal Signals) for 6 years First posting Germany with no deployments but lots of interop exercises. Second posting Germany again with deployment on Telic 3 (Iraq) DAOR 2005 in search of a more stable life, worst thing I ever did! Licenced radio amateur (whoop de doo) Desperate to find a local group / club and at least spectate a few skirmish's. Will respond to any excuse for heating one of my soldering irons up! I'm not really involved with airsoft, but I know a few who are, and they keep pestering me for something and I thought I would see what the wider community thought of it. People know that I am a bit of an electronics / radio geek and have asked me about Racal / Harris / BAE military radios, cost, legality availability etc. I can build from scratch, modify, re-program, hack and generally crack just about anything which is radio related, so I am looking into building something with the possibilty of making more. There are LOADS of points that I want to cover, and I intend to do just that in the future, but for now, some simple questions. Are you guys even BOTHERED about realistic looking military radios? Would you prefer EXACT replica's or just something more rugged than most 446's? How big are most of the game sites? Do you have an actual problem with radios that needs fixing? Is my tangent for lists pissing you off yet? Some inspiration: Look at that multi-polarised antenna!!! I don't care how much it would get in the way, it would make me weep tears of joy to see you guys cracking one of those out mid-skirmish just for shits and gigs! This is what I would refer to as "grim". Urgghh... plastic. What about manpacks? Let the arguments and flaming commence!