This may be a little off-topic, but there's lots of times when two-way communication is really handy - one guy on a tower and one on the ground, one in the woods and one in the cabin, etc.
Anyway, anyone familiar with the FRS/GMRS series of radios now offered by a lot of different makers probably knows that the "range" claims are generally over-optimistic. This weekend I bought a set by Motorola that literally amazed me. They performed better than advertised, had a rich set of features, NOAA weather reception, etc, and they're currently on clearance for $20 a pair.
Outpost.com has these Motorola 7400 units on sale for $20 after a $10
rebate, with free shipping:
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4885200?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
Same deal is available in-store, if you have a "Fry's Electronics" nearby. The in-store sale runs from last Friday through tomorrow. I don't know how long the online deal will be good, but chances are the price will go back up Wednesday.
The units have a pretty good feature set - 22 channels, 99 squelch codes (38 seems the norm), channel and code scan, vibrate alert mode, 8 weather channels, VOX (voice-operated transmit, great when you need both hands to do something else), and accessory (mic/ear audio) jacks.
Advertised range is "up to 8 miles". I always take these claims with a large grain of salt, but when I looked at the radios I was encouraged by (1) the larger physical size / antenna and (2) the fact that they used AA batteries. AA batteries have over twice the energy content of the AAAs used by many radios, and the prices is about the same. I decided to risk $20 and give the radios a shot.
First of all, the claimed range is 8 miles over water and 6 on land, line-of-sight. We set out yesterday morning to check the range. I'm in Dallas, and it's hard to find a long straight stretch of road, but we wound up going out I-30 east toward Rockwall. I dropped my friend off at "Snuffers", a roadside restaurant with an outdoor patio, so he wouldn't have to stand in the sun. For those who want to check a map, Snuffers is at the Ridge Road exit on I-30, just east of Lake Ray
Hubbard. I took off back down the highway toward Dallas.
I didn't expect to meet the claimed range, for several reasons. First, I assumed the claims would be optimistic; second, I was using rechargeable batteries which have lower terminal voltage than the fresh alkalines that were probably used for testing; and third, I wouldn't have true line-of-sight due to buildings, bridges, hills, etc.
Anyway, to make a long story short, we were reading one another pretty well at the 6-mile point (mfrs claimed land range), even though I was still sitting in the cab of my truck. Somewhere around 7 miles we started breaking up when I'd go down hills. At 8 miles I stopped on a high spot, got out of the truck, and found that we still had strong signal and clear audio. And we were still readable using the half-watt channels also.
The last point we checked had me at the intersection of I-30 and I-635 in Dallas, on high ground outside the truck, with him on the Snuffers patio back in Rockwall. At this point we were both getting some crackle on the audio. Distance is almost 10 miles, three of which were across water. Terrain was not ideal, but it was approximately line-of-sight.
I stopped the test at this point because it was going to take some major effort from where I had exited to get back on I-30 pointed west, and then there would be a 3-level highway interchange and some more hills between us anyway. Plus, we were both hungry for lunch.
Needless to say, my buddy is heading over to Fry's today to grab a couple of these sleepers before the sale is over.
