You see them in Radio Shack, sporting goods, camping and outdoor stores, and generally all over the place - attractively priced walkie talkies, often sold in blister packs in pairs at quite affordable prices and promising ranges as high as 35 miles between two small walkie talkies. If you've questioned that and thought that you'd be happy with just a quarter of that range, you're right to question, but think again, as you're not even going to get a quarter of that quoted 35 miles range - not even close. 1/4 to 1/2 mile between two handheld FRS radios is probably a lot closer to reality, depending on the terrain - perhaps even less.
FCC rules governing FRS radios limit them to 1/2 watt output power max and state that the antenna must be permanently fixed to the radio, meaning that you cannot attach a longer and more efficient whip antenna (or outdoor mounted base station antenna). The antennas on these radios are always short, very inefficient, and combined with the low output power of 1/2 watt, ensure that you're not going to be able to communicate very far.
There is another radio service that, like FRS, doesn't require that you have a license, yet allows output power of up to 2 watts with the ability to use any kind of antenna you wish. The service is called MURS (Multi-Use Radio Service) and you'll get much better range from a couple of MURS radios than from the cheaper FRS radios.
The MURS service was introduced by the FCC in the fall of 2000 and a comprehensive FAQ can be found here. For a few years after MURS was introduced, a number of manufacturers offered radios (both handheld and base station) that covered all 5 of the available channels but most of these went out of production and today, to my knowledge, the only MURS radio that is currently available is a handheld made by Dakota Alert - the DK-M538-HT, which has all 5 MURS channels. If you're wondering why a radio service that offers greater range than the FRS service hardly caught on and has so few radios available to buy, the only reason I can think of (which quite a lot of others seem to be thinking also) is that firstly, it is quite costly for a manufacturer to get a model of radio type-approved by the FCC so that it can be legally sold in the US. Many of these manufacturers are already selling lots of the cheaper and widely available FRS radios, so there is not much incentive for them to invest in a new line of radios. The fact that MURS radios will give much more satisfactory performance than FRS radios is not really important to makers, as consumers don't know any different. They see these attractive walkie-talkies in plastic bubble packs in stores that claim to give anything up to 35 miles range (completely unrealistic claims) for not much money and buy them. Makers keep getting the sales, so why should they invest the money to bring a better product to market? As for why the companies that were selling MURS radios for a few years stopped selling them, all I can think is that the public wasn't well-informed. Mr Average Joe Camper/Hiker goes to his local sporting goods or outdoor recreational store, sees a well-built quality MURS handheld radio selling for $100, then sees a blister pack with two FRS radios that claim to give a 14 mile range - and they are only $50 for the pair. SOLD! Joe goes home, tries out his new cheap FRS radios, realizes that they don't work that well, and figures that this is all he can expect from a handheld radio.
My friend Antoinette lives just a mile from me. We used to spend quite a lot of time talking on the phone, and despite my continued nags to her to limit our phone conversations to the times when her cellphone gave her free minutes at night, she just didn't seem to be able to control herself, and received bills in excess of $100 every month. I bought a couple of MURS radios for us, and instantly, her cell bills went down to the minimum for her plan of around $50 instead. On top of that, we find that the radios allow us to keep in more constant contact. If one of us wants to say something to the other, we just push the button and talk - no need to make a phone call. On top of that, the radios I bought were used ones from eBay for which I paid about $50 each (plus another $15 for a new rechargeable battery and about $30 for a longer and more efficient antenna), so you can see that they paid for themselves quite quickly.
These radios have all kinds of uses to RV'ers for keeping in touch in and around camp - even between vehicles when driving, which is why I'm including this post in my RV blog. Even though the options if you want to buy a new MURS radio are very limited, there a number of old business band radios that can be easily programmed for the MURS channels.
Here are the radios I bought - a couple of Kenwood TK2100's, complete with their inefficient "stubby" antennas. The front of the radios had the name of their owners (a retail establishment) engraved on them. You can see that the reseller from whom I bought them has filed the engraving off the front:
I got these from a seller on eBay who buys up job lots of old radios and resells them. There is now a newer version of the Kenwood TK2100 available if you want to buy new and spend more money, but these radios are very rugged and all I can tell you is that the 2 that I bought about 6 months ago have worked perfectly - and they have been used for around 8 hours a day every day. They have little nicks and abrasions (they were probably hanging off the belt of a security guard or loss prevention guy for a few years) so they're not as pretty as a new one, but c'mon - it's a radio, not a darned fashion accessory and besides, you won't feel as bad when you drop it for the first time if it already has nicks and scratches on it! Do a search on eBay for Kenwood TK2100 and you should get plenty of results. The radios I bought came with drop-in chargers that plug into the 120V AC supply. The charger is powered by a wall-wart, which has an output of 12V DC, so it looks like it might be possible to power the charger from the 12V DC supply in an RV. When I finally hit the road in a camper, I'll report back on this.On receiving the radios, I did 2 things to get them ready for regular service. Firstly, I bought 2 new aftermarket rechargeable batteries from a seller on eBay who was in Hong Kong. The batteries were $15 each including shipping, and have worked fine for the last 6 months. The radios come with batteries, but considering the kind of use these radios get, the batteries will probably be well past their prime by the time you get them, so I think it's advisable to get new batteries.
The second thing I did was to replace the included short antennas with longer and more efficient antennas which make a big difference to the kind of range you can achieve. Pryme make whip antennas for the 144MHz amateur band, and they work fine on the nearby MURS channels also. Here are the radios with "his n' hers" antennas. Both antennas do exactly the same thing, except one is slimmer:
A closer view:
The antenna is available here:http://www.prymestore.com/shop/catalog/amateur-products/rd-98-thin-whip-gain-antenna-with-bnc-connector.-2m--440mhz-2157.html (for the slimmer antenna)
This is the slimmer whip pictured on the lower radio in the above picture. I wasn't able to find the thicker one on the Pryme site, so it looks like they don't make it any more. No worries - they are both identical in operation anyway. The antenna has a BNC connector, so to attach it to the radio you will need an SMA female to BNC female adapter:
Ant and I have base station antennas mounted outside our apartments, which gives us even better range communicating back to base when one of us is out and about - try doing that with FRS radios!
That's about it. The radios work great, have saved Antoinette and I lots of money over cell phones, and are more fun to use. In some areas, MURS enthusiasts gather on the lower channels (MURS channel 3 tends to be popular for this use). If you're wanting to use MURS more like a CB radio to communicate with people other than those in your immediate group like these guys, you should consider a radio that covers all 5 MURS channels, as the Kenwood TK2100's I just described can only operate on MURS channels 4 and 5.
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