Living in South Africa and traveling to various neighbouring countries it has become imperative to develop an independent form of communication, hence joining the forum to gain more information. Will be investing in various options from GMRS to VHF and CB type equipment. I seriously feel that the day will soon come when “Africa” completely collapses . South Africa is the most stable country in Africa but in true Africa fashion is collapsing due to a corrupt government ruled by an even worse moron. questions on the forum will follow.
Well - same continent, but worse - is where my friend lives (Gambia) and he moved there from the UK a few years back. He was working in telecoms here - and took plenty of radio kit with him. He has set up a cheapish radio system that covers a fair area with some other ex-pats and locals, as their official systems rarely get fixed properly and are suspect to many - the thinking being that in times of trouble - the plug gets pulled.
what they have done is put in a series of VHF/UHF repeaters - mobile sets from China that do crossband as a built in feature. The links between these are on UHF beams - so they get a sensible range around each mobile, usually with it in somebodies house on a pole, then they link them all together. Anyone with a VHF radio comes out of everyone’s local area system. Cheapish and very functional, and with battery power to cover outages, it’s a good way to get a bit of safety. They’re using Motorola handies as they’re fairly common in the Gambia.