Decent comms without costing a fortune?

[Ebeneezer Goode]

There's a wide range of basic small PMR units that can be had for cheap, most are easy to program and should be perfectly usable unless you're skirmishing over several kilometres or in very hilly terrain. Just make sure everyone's on the same frequency etc...

[Tommikka]

Other than @Ebeneezer Goode popping in with a good old ‘keep it simple’ with PMR, most have gone straight in with the pros&cons of licenced systems

 

Nobody has asked what @Halointends to do with a radio.

 

Is it for general airsoft use, talking to anyone on the same side ?

Is it for talking to only a team group?

Is it within a reasonable range in the woods, indoors, an urban area?

 

The best answer for general use is standard PMR, any model, by any manufacturer.  Just UK compliant, on PMR frequencies and within the power range with a fixed aerial.

 

The common answer is a fully programmable radio, usually Baofeng, supposed to be operated with a licence and programmed to PMR frequencies illegally operating over authorised power levels 

 

A good point is that most posters have pointed out the need for a licence if doing so.

 

Ive used many, sometimes licenced, mostly standard PMR.

The ‘best’ handset I have used which gave me great value for money with the ability to monitor comms across multiple ‘channels’ was a cheap and nasty Tesco PMR handset operating on the original 8 analogue PMR frequencies without the sub and did not ‘support’ the sub frequencies.  But due to that lack of support I could set it to the basic home frequencies and listen to every sub frequency.

eg I was tuned to 1.00 and could only transmit on 1.00, but I could hear 1.01, 1.02, etc

Then with the aid of a fully featured PMR I could talk back to anyone

Wheh running a game I would carry a minimum of 2, most likely 3 handsets

 

1) Tescos cheapie - monitoring 

2) Full PMR - transmit/receive 

3) PMR or licenced handset - event running

 

Ive had a few handsets due over the years, the Tesco ones still worked the last time I tried, I assume they won’t manage to pickup my 16 channel digital PMRs - but Ive never tried 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Great post @Tommikka. Sums it all up very well. 

 

I still prefer talking/yelling however.

[Spartan09]

following this topic, as i am also considering getting a radio.

 

On 05/01/2022 at 13:30, Impulse said:

used it through AI500 in 2021, which meant absolutely torrential downpours that soaked it through.

oh, the memories.  that was probably as close to a monsoon as you are likely to get in the UK.  that saturday afternoon was absolutely lethal.

what team were you on?

[Impulse]

19 hours ago, Spartan09 said:

following this topic, as i am also considering getting a radio.

 

oh, the memories.  that was probably as close to a monsoon as you are likely to get in the UK.  that saturday afternoon was absolutely lethal.

what team were you on?

 

Yeah, there were more than a few issues that came from that rain. My radio is giving up, one guy's mosfet in his AK was totally busted and another guy's gun was completely dead after day 1. All of us lot from the Worthing site are always green team, been like that for over a decade now. I don't have any CQB guns though, so I spent the entire event holding angles outside and wishing they allowed bolt actions with how long some of the shots I was taking were with my m21 (which is set to 1.1J, because 1.48J for DMRs wasn't worth it in my opinion).

Edited January 10, 2022 by Impulse