I’m planning to purchase 2 radios for mountain hiking and packing. I heard that VHF is more appropriate for that environment, yet I’m having trouble identifying the feature on any of the advertizing.
I’ve been looking at the motorola’s. There is a big difference in price between the Talkabouts and the CP110 model, for example. If price didn’t matter too much, what radios would you recommend? I have read some of the other threads, but the info and product numbers may be old and/or discontinued.:rolleyes:
If price did not matter, I would get any Commercial Radio, Yaesu/Vertex, Kenwood, Motorola etc. I like the Black box radios, they are fairly inexpensive and perform just as well as the others I mentioned. I have been selling/renting them for about a year now and I use them myself. If you become an Amateur Radio Operator, otherwise known as a Ham Radio Operator, you can have a whole lot of frequencies open to you as a licensed Ham. You can then buy hand held ham radios that are frequency direct programmable, full powered radios with lots of options. see ARRL.ORG to learn more about Amateur Radio.
As far as VHF is concerned, the characteristics of that band works better outdoors than indoors, however I would most likely go with UHF because you can use them indoors much better than outdoors and if you are in the woods, with lots of trees, UHF will penetrate the trees much better than VHF will, however if you are in wide open area, VHF will travel further. As a rule of thumb, the higher up in MHZ you go, the better penetration though walls, structures etc. you get.
I hope this helps. Any other questions feel free to ask.
Also, UHF radios have shorter antennas than VHF radios have (lower frequency = shorter wavelength = shorter antenna). All other things being equal, UHF walkie talkies are more compact because of their shorter antennas and therefore may be easier (or at least less cumbersome) to carry.
This is very true. It’s nice to have a radio with a small 2" or so stubby antenna on it. It beats having a 6-8" antenna whip on your side, although you can still have that larger antenna on UHF and get slightly greater range than the stubby, it really depends upon your personal preference and range needs.
I concurred with Radio-Man on another post, being a 2-way dealer like he is. In reference to outdoors, I live in a highly wooded area with lots of pine trees. The pine needles are about 6 inches long, the same as the UHF wave length, and they act like grounding rods for the UHF signals. I had a customer move in from another state (different vegetation) and he had used UHF outdoors there. He questioned my recommendation to use VHF, so we did a range test. Two sets of radios, Motorola CP200’s, one set VHF and the other UHF were tested. The VHF talked better. This was a Christian summer camp and they spent more time out doors than in.
This is very true, pine needles will tend to absorb UHF signals, however if you use the radios mostly indoors go with UHF and if your primary use is outdoors go with VHF. UHF is still cleaner in signal quality than VHF. It’s always a toss up on which way to go, because there are a lot of factors that affect range. You can never go wrong with UHF because 90% of everyones use is in man made structures which UHF penetrate better than VHF.
hello, sorry but that is incorrect. lower frequencies have higher wavelengths which is why the antenna needs to be bigger. the equations for frequency and wavelength is
speed = wavelength * frequency
since speed of sound is constant through the medium with which we are dealing with (air most of the time), when the frequency decreases the wavelength must then increase. thus, VHF antennas are larger to capture the larger wavelengths. UHF, being a higher frequency, needs a much shorter antenna.
the approximate whip antenna length calculation is as follows:
for a 1/4 length whip : 2808/ (frequency in MHz)
if you want a half length whip, you can adjust the calculation accordingly.
***Note: length of antenna will be in inches
That would be feet? meters? inches? micro furlongs?
it will be in inches
I am new to the site and i think it is great
I have a question i am looking into radios for deer hunting
We have had your typical talkabouts and not alot of success
I am looking inot the Motorola BPR40
What do you think of this radio for this application?
Should i go UHF or VHF?
Thanks for your hrlp
Ernie