{"id":2052,"date":"2008-07-30T09:45:20","date_gmt":"2008-07-30T17:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=2052"},"modified":"2008-07-30T11:11:17","modified_gmt":"2008-07-30T19:11:17","slug":"two-way-radios-for-hiking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/07\/30\/two-way-radios-for-hiking\/","title":{"rendered":"Two-way radios for hiking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/busybeingborn\/2716701263\/\" title=\"Motorola two-way radio by busybeingborn, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3270\/2716701263_e0ca3aaa5a_m.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" alt=\"Motorola two-way radio\" class=\"alignright\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;ve been on group hikes where folks carry along little two-way radios, which are a notch above those walkie-talkies we played with as kids. The range isn&#8217;t great, especially when there are hills and trees in the way, but as long as you know their limitations and don&#8217;t expect &#8220;Beam me up Scotty&#8221; performance, you might find one worth having. <\/p>\n<p>You really need to buy them in pairs. If you&#8217;re in the market, start out at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.consumersearch.com\/www\/electronics\/two_way_radios\/\">ConsumerSearch.com,<\/a> which has already done a bunch of the grunt work research on the various models. Among the links I found there: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boyslife.org\/outdoors\/guygear\/2116\/guy-gear-two-way-radios\/\">A Boys Life<\/a> magazine profile of available models. <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twowayradioforum.com\/forum\/forumdisplay.php?f=10\">Two-Way Radios Forum<\/a>, whose host reviews a bunch of them. Discussion sites like this are where you often find the best tips on what to buy and what to avoid. <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fcc.gov\/cgb\/consumerfacts\/prs.html\">FCC&#8217;s page<\/a> on radio rules and such.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Interestingly,   Consumer Search&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Midland-GXT710VP3-22-Channel-26-Mile-2-Way\/dp\/B000P0RPX0%3FSubscriptionId%3D1YZPTABAME4B7R9J4CG2%26tag%3Dcs-wtb-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB000P0RPX0\">best overall model<\/a>&#8221; was described as big, bulky and not likely to fit in a shirt pocket in a review at Amazon.com &#8230; so keep in mind you might want to hold the actual radio in hand before you buy.  Also, the basic Motorola models that sell for under $30 a pair get reasonably good ratings, so you don&#8217;t have to go broke figuring out if you need one. <\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re totally into the ultra-geeky-cool gadgets, GPS giant Garmin&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegpsstore.com\/GPS-FRS-Radios-C9.aspx\">Rino range of GPS units<\/a> have a two-way radio built in that allows you to location track anybody else in your group who also has one of these trinkets. Overkill for run-of-the-mill outings, but it could prove useful in certain expedition settings. These are not priced by the pair; two of the snazziest models would set you back over a thousand bucks.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>A couple potentially useful links:<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bestbuy.com\/site\/olspage.jsp?guideID=1072288099473&#038;type=page&#038;id=cat12077\">Best Buy&#8217;s guide to two-way radios<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.buytwowayradios.com\/Products\/Choose-A-Two-Way-Radio.aspx\">Sort by brand and feature<\/a> at the Buy Two Way Radios site. <\/p>\n<p>Your feedback welcome, as always. (For fun, let&#8217;s see how long it takes for Steve from the <a href=\"http:\/\/wildebeat.net\">Wildebeat<\/a> to extoll the virtues of Ham radio. UPDATE: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/07\/30\/two-way-radios-for-hiking\/#comment-6396\">it took 69 minutes<\/a>).  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been on group hikes where folks carry along little two-way radios, which are a notch above those walkie-talkies we played with as kids. The range isn&#8217;t great, especially when there are hills and trees in the way, but as&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/07\/30\/two-way-radios-for-hiking\/\">Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}