Help! I bought 4 Baofeng 5RX units (one for each family household) - we are scattered throughout the city of Chicago. Just want radios ‘on hand’ in case there are cellular problems or outages - emergency only. I have tried to read up and watch instructional videos and am, frankly, lost. Is there a way to simply communicate between households, using these radios, in a current range of 1-2 miles from one another? Trying to keep things simple so our kids understand and have these in case of emergency. Thank you for all your help…I started the dive into Ham…etc…and am unsure what to do/easier way. JFL
Forgive me, but as a Brit, i suspect i may have misunderstood. You have all passed your exams and got your FCC licences? I only ask as that is a ham radio, not one of the FRS or GMRS specific ones people just normally use for friends and family stuff. Plenty of people of course use them illegally, but thats up to you. They are portable, low power radios and in urban rather than rural areas, range will be very short, yards, not miles. Radio to radio works very poorly as antennas are usually low down and buildings and other obstacles reduce the range. Your expectations sort of made you buy the wrong things, I fear. Realistically, to do what you want to do takes more equipment than just radios.
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I would have gone with radios that do not require a license to start off. MURS can be a good alternative that has more reach than UHF bands. I’m a licensed ham, but I got a set of Retivis RT21V radios for intra-family use. Cheap. Nothing to program, no screen, just 5 channels via a knob on top. Easy for kids to understand - just develop a channel plan ahead of time. I opted for the higher gain antennas to stretch out the range a bit, BUT…it’s still VHF - line of sight and all that. One to two miles might be possible unless you have the Willis Tower in between you and the others.
The Baofengs are only good if you know how to use them, and practicing without the proper license is not generally a good practice. If you wait until you actually need communications, you’ll be disappointed…and out of communication. At least with the MURS radios you can distribute them and force yourselves to find out if they work or not for your purposes.
YouTube videos tend to greatly exaggerate the ability of radios. You will never know until you try out whatever you have. Good luck!!!
Thank you for your response and help. Yes, not trying to skirt any required laws…etc…I was just looking for a dependable means of comm for when they potentially disrupt cellular service/towers/transmission. We have 3 daughters here in CHI…all in city - roughly .5 to 1.8 mi around us. looking for a way to be able to comm if/when phones are inoperable.
Thank you for your attention and help.
My office is just over 1 mile from my home. My home has a business repeater and decent antenna. I does not work in my office. If you look at the topography online, the ground is higher between us so im in a dead spot. Its a harbour, so very low. Range can be hundreds of yards, not miles. Worse, if everyone does a synchronised hold radio above head often they suddenly work, but sticking one in a pocket reduces range hugely.
I’m in a Chicago 20 story high-rise on the lake with family within 2 miles, and going thru the same thinking now. How to provide family communications first for my wife and myself, then the nearby family. Want to be able to move around the building and immediate neighborhood and stay in contact.
I haven’t been able to find any applicable urban range tests of the various radio alternatives, how they behave in/outside the building, cross town. City use will be very different then camping and rural.
After some research, It’s between MURS and GMRS (with the license) and kind of leaning towards MURS because of ease of use, replaceable antenna and the shorter wavelength. Might have less crowded channels too due to popularity of GMRS. My next step is to pick up a set of radios and just try them. I’ll post any results.
Could be loads of MURS radios in the city, businesses and warehouses are full of them.
Thank you Jim, I look forward to what you find. I bought the Baofeng 5RX, which i believe you need the correct license for the Ham operation. I’m wondering if it has MURS capability. Again, emergency use only. I am in Lincoln Park, and the kids are Lakeview, Gold Coast, Lincoln Park. Farthest is 1.7 mi Gold Coast location.