Club Radios

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franken60

franken60

10 Year
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Threads
108
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1,242
Location
Victoria BC
Last meet we talked about getting a set of hand held radios for club runs. This idea was originally brought up after some confusion on the trail with a large group. Long story short we got split up and half the group had to find their way back the long way.
To solve this we got thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some radios that can be passed out at the beginning of the run to ease confusion. Things like where the next stop is, having to stop if you're at the back, making a wrong turn or even just idle bs .

The radios would come out of the club fund, that being said I think it would be good to have enough people on board before going ahead on any purchase.

The radios would be kept by on club member, preferably someone who continuously is present for club runs. They would be in charge of bringing the radios, collecting them and charging them...not a big task.

What are people's thoughts on this?

Lachlan
 
I think it's a good idea. Toshi38 gave me advice on this a long time ago (I think it was him...), as he had experience with radios with a club in Ontario or something. Hopefully he chimes in with some ideas.

I ended up with a nice little Baofeng programmable FRS/GMRS/VHF radio. Costs the same as the low power Canadian Tire FRS only radios, but can do 5W. Something like that might be an option for our club. I can program them....
 
GTSSportCoupe said:
I think it's a good idea. Toshi38 gave me advice on this a long time ago (I think it was him...), as he had experience with radios with a club in Ontario or something. Hopefully he chimes in with some ideas.

I ended up with a nice little Baofeng programmable FRS/GMRS/VHF radio. Costs the same as the low power Canadian Tire FRS only radios, but can do 5W. Something like that might be an option for our club. I can program them....
Click to expand...

No decisions on what type has been made yet but that's good to know! We figured someone with a cb would get one as well, that way messages can be relayed to everyone no matter what type they are using. But the club radio purchase would be all of the same
 
We use about 15 of the Baofeng FRS/GMRS radios at our camp during the summer. The UV5-R is most popular but has squelching flaws. I have a GT-3 and it seems to have much less interference.

Programming them is easy. Just buy the CD and watch a video/tutorial. Apparently GTSS is already familiar with the programming :-)

You can purchase handheld mics for very cheap to add to them for easy operation in the vehicle.

You can also program these to talk with other FRS/GMRS radios as long as you set the main and sub frequencies the same. But just know that you CANNOT program these radios on-the-fly; they have to be done through a computer. However, for example, if you program all your Baofeng radios to have a sub-frequency of 12 more than the main frequency (Ie 3/15 where main is 3 and sub is 15) then you can let others know who have motorola or whatevers know which channels to tune in to and they should work.

The benefit of the Baofeng's is:
1. Price point.
2. Longer battery life.
3. 5w-10w = much longer range
4. Dual scan. You can listen to two frequencies at once.
5. Programability.

Here is a link to the one I have. I've been very impressed by it's range and easy of use.

3800mAh Battery Baofeng GT-3TP MarkIII 8W 136-174/400-520MHz Ham Two-way Radio
 
We put up club $$ to buy a lot of GMRS radios to hand out during club runs. Many of us also bought a couple of these for our own use. They have come in very handy.
Here is the thread. The details are in post #8. emorth is our mobile comms and electrical guru.
GPS and Radio Recommendations
 
ForearlBoreal, that's unfortunate! Did you program it yourself? Are you trying to talk to others with cheaper FRS radios?
 
Hey all...

Yes in Ontario we did a club buy of the baofeng radios, that said what we did was the club (more like one guy) arranged to buy all of the radios and program them, each person paid for theirs out of pocket. The one guy reports this was a massive pain in the ass :)

If you guy's want some I can drop some off this summer as I'll be around and I'll be in China first and can get them a bunch cheaper direct from the manufacturer. The downside here is I won't warranty them if they break...(because I'm a lazy ass) if you buy from AliExpress they usually are decent to deal with for warranty...

Pros and cons are pretty widely covered above.
My opinion is they're a good radio for the price but of course there are also other cheap radios for the same price range.

Things they can do:
Communicate with the other FRS/GMRS radios just fine
Because they have an antenna mount you can chose an antenna that suits you.
Communicate (or at least listen in) on logging frequencies.
Program with PC

Things they can not do:
They can not talk to CB radios
Talk to Aircraft radios

There are also cheap options from china for truck mounted higher power radios.

A note on programming:
To program you must use a PC as mentioned.
That said -- you can chose a frequency ect on the go so you don't "have" to program them (they're a pain in the ass to use without programming).
 
If you use a handheld vhf for communication with GMRS/FRS, please make sure to turn the power level down to 1 watt (low).
If you use them for calling in KM on resource roads, make sure to change them to Narrow band (defaults on wide band). And don't use the RR for chit chat (use the other band for that)

I have a couple Baofeng UV-82L handhelds, benefit of these particular is they are 5 watt (the GT3 is only 4), they have Dual PTT not just dual scan (this is huge!) and they have a larger battery capacity, nearly twice if I recall. Note the first I received was a dud and would only transmit about 300m on 5watts. I returned it and they sent a replacement that works great.

Keep in mind you are supposed to have a ham license to use these radios... not that I care personally as long as you're being respectful / responsible with their use, but some people might care. The good news is the Chilliwack radio club puts on multiple courses per year, only 2 day and they are about $90. Which includes the course, materials, test, call sign registration, etc... and the license is for life, no renewals needed :) I highly recommend doing this.
 
Back at this thread, @asutherland do you Know of any courses offered on the island? I believe there is a Cowichan valley radio club but don't hear much about them. It would be cool if we got enough interest, to organize for a course to be held on the south Island.

I'm getting the drift that the baofeng UV5R seems to be most popular. GT3 had some pros and the radio king over here recommended the UV-82L.
 
Beofeng also make sets of "walkie talkies" that seem to be quite good which wouldn't require a license. I haven't heard of any offerings of course on the island, but then again I haven't been looking for one either. The Chilliwack club are really into bringing new blood into the hobby and a couple of the main guys there are 4wd nuts like us, you can't go wrong. They also offer a condensed course which is 1.5 days.
 
asutherland said:
Beofeng also make sets of "walkie talkies" that seem to be quite good which wouldn't require a license. I haven't heard of any offerings of course on the island, but then again I haven't been looking for one either. The Chilliwack club are really into bringing new blood into the hobby and a couple of the main guys there are 4wd nuts like us, you can't go wrong. They also offer a condensed course which is 1.5 days.
Click to expand...

Would that require heading across the pond to take though? Not sure if we could get enough people to commit to that if that's the case

I'll check out some walkie talkies
 
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