Looking at 2 way radios with my neighbors

[Jstpssng]

The phone patches were part of a two way radio system, worked off a repeater and required a subscription. They were annoying as #### for anybody else on that radio frequency. Even today a lot of companies have their own two way frequency, so that they can communicate without everyone listening to them.

We had that type of two way when I was working for the state. One Monday morning in springtime I went out and my truck had sunk into the thawing driveway. My boss was wondering where I was that AM but I didn't have a phone, and there was no way that I was going to get on the two way to announce that I ws stuck in my driveway to anyone who might be listening.

 

[Alien]

Handheld UHF radios would have plenty of range for what you require but the problem is batteries. Are they intending to be left on all the time?
People are lazy when it comes to charging/changing batteries. If a radio is not left on then it can't be called.

Personally I would consider a base station UHF using a power supply with battery back-up. They can be left on all the time on a common channel and using a selcall tone to activate the audio when needed.
That is what I used with my business.

 

[B7510HSD]

I vote getting Ham radios also. Note if "something" happens and you have a need to communicate with the locals and the said other communications are down you just may need to seek help from "Outside" these locals as well and Ham radio would be the best option for this IMO. maybe some of these other options for all locals and a few Hams as well for "Just in Case".

 

[ChuckT]

My experience (and I had a basic ham licence at one time) is that if you cannot see the other person you cannot depend on communication with a civilian hand-held.
And I noticed that alot of people experienced mic-fright when CB was popular.
Congrats on thinking about the welfare of your family AND your neighbors but I'm betting you just need to recruit a few key families and establish a "telephone tree" to monitor as much of your locale as you can find willing partners. And be prepared for push-back from some that may value privacy more.

 

[Hay Dude]

I think it would but the older folks wouldn稚 spend that.

If the event of SHTF I may wire up a panic button with an outdoor siren for them.

Moving forward I think we need to band together with our neighbors and become a better community. There is a really good chance we are headed for very uncertain times.

I think you are going to see a lot of that. A new awakening. Face to face conversations and banding together in the small communities to face the uncertainty of the future

 

[Hay Dude]

I had one of those on a handheld around ?7, I think it was referred to as a phone patch. We shared the frequency with another small service company. Our 2 way was separate for both companies but the phone patch was like the old party line. When you wanted to make a call you switched channels to see if it was in use. So no privacy and you conversed one at a time, like you said, over!

Then we got bag phones, what a game changer!

Hah! I see. I had no idea it was kind of a new play on old technology. We thought it was kind of cool back then. :laughing:
I think you squeezed a raised switch on the phone handle for 2 way with you fingers and palm and then used the normal touch tone phone pad for phone calls.

 

[ruffdog]

With my close neighbors I just walk or ride my bike to check in on them.:drink:

 

[/pine]

It does not get any easier or simpler than a set of GMRS hand sets (walkie-talkies) from Walmart etc...you can use the FRS frequencies without any license required...plenty of range for the described situation...don't know why others are making it sound more complicated...

 

[Hay Dude]

It does not get any easier or simpler than a set of GMRS hand sets (walkie-talkies) from Walmart etc...you can use the FRS frequencies without any license required...plenty of range for the described situation...don't know why others are making it sound more complicated...

Had and continue to have them for 20 years and never got satisfactory reception with them. We tried them everywhere and they ended up in the closets gathering dust

 

[plowhog]

It does not get any easier or simpler than a set of GMRS hand sets (walkie-talkies) from Walmart etc...you can use the FRS frequencies without any license required...plenty of range for the described situation...don't know why others are making it sound more complicated...

For starters, it is illegal to connect a FRS radio to an external antenna. Since users in this scenario would likely want to use such a radio indoors, the combination of low power FRS with no external antenna would severely restrict the radios ability to function as the OP wants. Using a FRS radio for boating or two fisherman keeping in touch along a stream is a much different usage.

I recently had friends buy two GMRS radios for emergency communications. Very similar desire to what the OP wants. I advised ham radios but they said that was too complicated. My friends spent several hundred $$.

I looked into their radios after the purchase. If I recall correctly, the GMRS radios are "channelized" so you select what channel to communicate on, not what frequency. This means you can only choose the channels your GMRS radio allows you to choose. I looked at the channel list for their radios, and found some low power channels, using very low wattage, and some "high power" channels. But there are only 8 high power channels. These people are in a metropolis urban environment. Do you have any idea what those channels are going to be like in a SHTF scenario, with hundreds of users all wanting to share only 8 channels?

It got worse. My friends believed they could have their "own channel" because the radio mfgr advertised you could set a "tone" for a discrete frequency. They misunderstood this to be setting up some sort of secret frequency only for themselves. Not correct. The "tone" only acts like a squelch, not opening the radio unless another radio transmits also using this same tone. But if the frequency is already in use you will be blocked by them, and you should not "step on" others if they are on the frequency anyway.

To the previous poster, this isn't "complicated" if you understand the facts and technology. I'm not singling you out ... only trying to share that there is a lot more involved than buying a pair of walkie talkies from Walmart. Someone with a ham license is going to better understand these tradeoffs typically better than average joe simply because they went through the training and probably better understand the issues at hand.

For those advocating UHF radios, one of the most popular models of mobile Ham radios is a "dual band" radio, permitting communication on 2 meter (fm) and 440 (UHF.)

To finish, the ability to have an external antenna, and choose frequencies instead of being restricted to channels, is a very big difference when it comes to radio use and performance.