Walkie Talkies in the bush

[rebo]

Has anyone had any experience of portable lightweight communication gear in rainforest situations.
I am thinking of situations in a group where walkers become spread out and the lead wants to contact
the Tail end Charlie .Something with a range of 3km max that will work over a ridge.Even something that
would transmit a position with or without voice contact could be considered.I am told the Garmin Rhino is
no longer viable in Australia.Is there anything else.

[Son of a Beach]

I've used UHF handhelds a couple of times while walking solo while my mate stays around an area of lakes/rivers fly fishing. One time I dropped the radio in a creek, and surprise, surprise - it didn't work when I needed to contact the other guy.

It wasn't mine, so I was relieved that it started working again after leaving it open a drying it out for a while.

Borrowed it again on another trip, but didn't have much luck with it once over the other side of a ridge and my fly fishing mate and I were about 3km apart. However, I can't be confident that the other guy had his handset on and close all the time, or if it was loud enough for him to hear it (he was wading and fishing).

[Macca81]

i use one often, but its attached to my 4WD, so i would be hesitant trying to pack it for walking...

personaly, when walking, we just ensure we have a reliable person at the front and the back and coordinate stops often enough to re-group.

[Ent]

Hi

I noticed that the NW walking club appear to use them. The trick is the power rating. 1/2 watt are cheap as chips but a serious 5 watt job is very expensive plus heavy due to batteries needed to drive it. Brother uses a commercial grade hand held and get excellent results while his mates use 1/2 watt units and they find that they are basically line of sight jobs. He can get very good coverage back to UHFs in vehicles or a farmer that has a similar rated hand held.

Cheers Brett

[tastrax]

Another thing to consider is the batteries. Some use AA whilst others have their own unique batteries. If you are on long trips then AA is much more convenient.

A good selection are available here

http://www.prestigecom.net.au/index.php ... ex&cPath=2

[rebo]

Brett
You say
"Brother uses a commercial grade hand held"
Do you know what brand and type(UHF,VHF) it is?
Thanks for all the replies so far

[Ent]

Hi

I think is a Sawtron but that model has disappeared or more likely hard to get as mega expensive and would have to be four years if not older. They are fully programmerable to power output and frequencies so often used by remote mine surveying with dedicated frequencies. My brother is radio gear freak so bound to have been the best available sourced from a friend running a communication business in the NT.

Uniden do 5 watt handhelds that are water resistent but you are looking up around the $400 mark per unit. GME is probably better made but that is likely dubious nowadays.

Double AA are good but they do make for a heavy battery pack compared to l-ion ones.

Cheers Brett

[Macca81]

for quality go icom, but they are expensive.
for bang for buck you want GME, they are almost as good in quality but much cheaper.
for the budget conscious go Uniden, they are the most popular radio avail, but its because they are cheap. they arent bad units, they just are not as good as either GME or icom

[rebo]

Thanks Macca81
Does Motorola have any kind of rating in the hierachy

[Macca81]

i would say its not really known as one of the big brands, and as such im unsure on what its quality is like. id say that for the prices of them they cant be too bad in terms of value

[cams]

We take at least one CB in our group whenever we go. Just a cheap Uniden. When I go with my mate who is a radio tech we all get really nice Icom commercial UHF's to carry. Handy because they like going at whatever pace they like and the group can get split up easily. As mentioned the commercial units have a higher transmit power but this isn't any use unless whoever you're talking to has the same power. We program them up with a private channel plus all the CB channels.

This same mate also carries an HF radio believe it or not. The whole unit weighs about 6kg lol. Maybe more. He loves being able to set it up when we get into camp and talk to his family via a telephone interconnect and see how far he can talk. He uses a home made Ni-MH battery (heaviest part), home made antenna interface and a long wire antenna ( a piece of wire about 6m long strung up over a tree by hurling a fishing sinker). He has successfully spoken to people near Perth from the middle of the rainforest at O'rieleys near Brisbane.

If anyone is interested in purchasing HF and other radios give me a yell. I work for a comms company in Brisbane. We are one of the biggest Codan dealers in oz.

[Macca81]

We take at least one CB in our group whenever we go

wouldnt it be better to take at least 2? with one, are you not just talking to yourself??

[cams]

We take at least one CB in our group whenever we go

wouldnt it be better to take at least 2? with one, are you not just talking to yourself??

haha. We mainly just take one in case there is ever a search and rescue type situation where there may be people in the area looking for us.