Looking for a comms setup for me and the boy. I have zero interest or time to get a HAM license and I’m reasonably confident that the PMR power limit will be enough for the majority of sites we play at.
That said, there are still a bewildering number of options.
Main wants:
* simple to use
* can take a beating
* comes with a PTT and ear piece (although I suppose I can get these separately)
Any PMR will do the job, and as the PMR specifications are explicit on the power level / aerial length then they will all do the same thing
Things have changed over the years with going from analogue to digital and additional ‘channel frequencies’, and I’m out of date on any particular models
Back in the olden days I used to run an assortment of PMRs from cheap crappy Tesco PMRs to Motorolas XTNiD???
These were supplemented over the years with assorted analogue then digital PMRs
We never formally went to licenced frequencies for the team, but did operate handsets on site licences
My Tesco PMRs only had the 8 primary channels (could not transmit on the ‘sub frequencies’ but as they were not true frequencies these cheap handsets could listen to all the ‘channels’ that they did not know they could not receive)
They also had the benefit of being able to run on their charged battery pack or a handfull of AAAs
The Motorolas were hand and computer programmable - you could preset the PMR frequency’s against the handsets channel 1,2,3 etc
The Motorolas were clearly much better quality, but either system worked anywhere I wanted unless hills got in the way
I was very fond of my Tesco specials for event running, especially to listen to multiple channels then use the Motorolas to transmit
On occasion I would use head sets, but they were more of a problem than a benefit
At one event we were in the ‘command chain’, with a faction handset and our own team handsets. For the first mission my teammate carried the comms pair, and was out of touch for the whole mission - he had plugged his personal headset into the faction radio - despite appearing to be the same plug it was totally incompatible
I took the faction handset for the rest of the weekend
The other comms dial is VOX. The safe zone heard my expletives as I jumped backwards away from the window i had just put my head in as a barrel was coming out, and the other major VOX fail was the fillstation compressor operator locking out the Marshall channel everytime he ran the compressor
Players will often say that PMRs are not up to the job in the woods as their personal justification for licenced types (and then programme them to PMR frequencies - the ‘benefit’ being the extra power)
I’m yet to see a real life case (at the players level) to successfully use licenced power when PMR legal doesn’t get through
For marshalling/events we would relay over hills - if there’s a hill in the way of the game area then we would have someone stood on top of they hill
Otherwise a mobile phone would cross hills (assuming the site has a signal)
For non PMR (even if programming to PMR frequencies) the go to ‘brand’ is Baofeng
As we have a comms professional (and because it’s illegal) we won’t endorse use of these on PMr frequencies - but nobody is likely to notice and I’m not aware of anyone being caught
If you want to communicate with other teams etc then you need to know their frequencies
(which may just be PMR) and be able to select those frequencies (which may be just dialing in or could involve manually or electronically programming
So the ultimate question is who do you need to communicate with - unless you have already done your homework to select PMR
Next it’s whether you want to keep simple (and legal) with PMR or go inbetween with a Baofeng programmed to PMR
