I am considering communications for my hunting, a unit or two for my Landcruiser and possibly a hand held unit or two.
I am very green on radio equipment, never owned any and hardly ever used them.
I do have two hand held units I bought cheap in Broadway, New York once. I think they are UHF and do work together very well but never heard anyone else on them. Really haven't used them and usually forget to take them when hunting with someone else (into the hunting bag they must go!).
I am looking for any good advice on what to equip myself with. The equipment should have a reasonable range as the Australian Outback is where they will primarily be used. More than one unit may be considered.
-------------------- John aka NitroX
...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"
John, There are some great UHF units available these days. Electrophone or Uniden would be my choice both for your vehicle and for hand held. I first started using handhelds back in the 80's when they were big units with huge bulky Nicad battery's. I've owned and used a lot of different units over the years including the 5 watt (max legal output) handhelds. I issue my hunting clients with very small units when hunting remote parts of the country.
Thesedays, regarding handheld radios, here's what I prefer. First they must be UHF as this is what landowners mainly use. They must be compact so that you are happy to carry them and don't leave them back at camp. They must have 40 channels. They should have both a scan and duplex function. They MUST use disposable alkaline batteries like energiser or duracell or similar. They should have a on screen battery life indicator. They MUST have a key pad lock. They should have a power output of at least one watt. They should have volume adjustment by buttons not by rotating knob. They should have a carry strap.
There are good radios available from GME Electrophone and Uniden that provide all this and thesedays they are very cheap compared to 10 or more years ago. Forget the ones with rechargable batteries. The batts are expensive and usually go flat at the worst moment. With radios that use AA or AAA you can buy bulk packs from places like Dick Smith and they are cheap and easy to carry a fresh set in your gear. Hand helds used in very heavy scrub can be limited in distance sometimes to only a few hundred meters (handheld to handheld) but when used in open line of sight country can reach several kilometers.
For your Tojo, either of the same two brands in 5 watt output is the go. They are now very small units. I run an old Electrophone that I bought 20 years ago in my Toyota. It's been in several different vehicles and has been very reliable. Wish I could say the same for the antenna's as I've broken quita few over the years but have had a real good one on for the last 5 years or so.
Alan has just about covered it with both the hand held and the vehicle mounted sets. My hand helds are the old GME's which cost me around $600-00 each about 20 years ago. Modern technology has improved them out of site and the price is about half of what I paid for one. You cannot go past the GME units,Aussie made for Aussie conditions.. When I'm working in very isolated areas on my own I carry a GME 210 EPIRB for insurance. Not much bigger than a pack of cigs. Al
-------------------- "Dogs always bark at their master"
Sir Seretse Khama.25th June 1949
In reply to: You cannot go past the GME units,Aussie made for Aussie conditions..
Al True enough I bought my GME for the vehicle as at the time in my area in west QLD there was a lot of scrub pulling going on and the GME was the one that could handle the conditions in those old D9's they used to use. In those days there were not many Unidens about and Electrophones only real competition came from Phillips. The Phillips had a push-key channel selector and it didn't like the dust much. I also have owned a few of the big 5w/1w hand helds and you are right about the high price compared to what is available thesedays.
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