Back

@jgoerzen The grocery store and hardware store that are the closest to our house are a little over a mile away but that shopping center is like a black hole where my cell phone is completely useless. I'm seriously considering getting a couple Motorola DLRs so I can talk to my wife while I'm at the store in case she thinks of something she needs from the store or needs to get ahold of me while I'm there in general. Do the Motorolas have an internal li-ion battery? Are there any others with similar range that take AA/AAA?

@jgoerzen Really enjoyed your blog post by the way!

@kelbot Thanks, glad it was helpful!

@kelbot My tests were in a rural area, so YMMV on range. But this would probably be one of your best bets unless you go for ham radio, which would let you access repeaters and such. 2/

@kelbot The Motorolas won't take AA/AAA, but a number of FRS or GMRS would. To get similar range, you would need a 5W GMRS radio and one easy-to-obtain GMRS license. https://old.reddit.com/r/gmrs/comments/uodbt1/so_im_fairly_new_to_radios_i_just_received_my/ has some recommendations. I haven't used it, but that Radioddity GM30 looks like a decent deal; 5W for $40 (not sure about the bat situation). 3/

@kelbot I bought the Midland GXT1000 back when it was a 5W GMRS radio. Since FCC banned FRS/GMRS crossover radios, Midland made it a 2W FRS rather than a 5W GMRS radio so it's no longer king of the hill. But, 2W may be sufficient for you. Hard to say really. It can run in 4 AAs. Midland may have other 5W options; anything 5W will require a GMRS license. https://old.reddit.com/r/gmrs/ would be a goo place to look, or https://forums.mygmrs.com/ . I will be interested in how it pans out for you! /end

@jgoerzen It seems like the Motorola DLRs would be my best bet especially if I can get them cheap second hand. I kind of like analog's ability to fade out gracefully rather than just disappear but if they have sufficient range for our uses then it won't be a problem.

@kelbot Yep. You get no warning that you are approaching the edge of coverage with digital. Though to be fair, you don't with analog either, unless you are actively conversing at the time One interesting thing about the Motos: when you push PTT (push-to-talk) you wait about 0.5s for a "OK, you can talk now" tone before you start speaking. If the radio detects that there isn't at least 1 other receiving the transmission, it fails it with a reject tone. You know if you're being heard.

@kelbot In my testing at the edge of the range, if I'd get the reject tone, I could try orienting the antenna different or holding the radio higher and trying again a couple seconds later... There was just a fringe where that could sometimes work.

@kelbot One thing I should add: yes you can get 5W analog GMRS that take 4AA bats and they will get you similar range as a DLR. But they will be twice as thick and twice as heavy and taller. The DLR slips into any pocket I have. My Midland GMRS would have to use the belt clip.

@kelbot
The downside of the DLR is higher new price (though used it's not bad, but you still may have to buy charger. You can get by without programming cable but it makes some things a lot easier/possible). Also DLRs don't receive NOAA weather radio and don't have VOX (automatically tranmitting when a certain level of sound is received at the mic, though in fairness, VOX is usually so terrible I never use it)

@jgoerzen Good points. The compact size is definitely a better fit for me. Would have been nice to have the NOAA radio feature though. That would have been a much easier sell to the wife if they had it X-).

@jgoerzen I saw that there are some radios with some ability to send short predifined text messages. Why aren't there any that include a thumb keyboard and just let you type out short messages?

@kelbot AFAIK all three of the GMRS radios that can send text messages pair to a cellphone via Bluetooth and that's the usual way to both compose and read them. I know that entry on-device is possible on the BTECH GMRS-PRO (though very slow, since you're basically up/down through the alphabet for each letter). Not sure about the Garmin Rino and Motorola T800. Disclaimer: I don't own any of these devices so am trying to remember what I've seen.

@kelbot If you go to the updated version of the post at https://www.complete.org/the-joy-of-easy-personal-radio-frs-gmrs-and-motorola-dlr-dtr/ you see a section about Trisquare radios at the bottom. They did have a full numeric keypad that made entry somewhat faster (still darn slow by modern standards). Reasons more don't have that probably include cost, waterproofing challenges, size, etc. Ham handhelds often have a numeric keyboard at least, but the waterproof ones are also a lot more expensive. Note: I wouldn't recommend Trisquares.

@kelbot I haven't used the cheap FRS radios in the last few years. 2W is a lot better than 0.5W so FRS is more capable than it used to be. In some cases, the difference from 2W to 5W won't matter... in others, it will be huge. I can't say. What I can say is that if you're buying radios at effectively $17 a piece, you know there is a compromise somewhere. Build quality, waterproofing, battery life, antenna quality, who knows. You might look for reviews. Eg on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Radioddity-License-Free-Broadcast-Channels-Earpiece/product-reviews/B07T5DSJGQ/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews

@jgoerzen Yes, good point. We wouldn't be using them real intensively but I'm sure they aren't the best quality. I'm seeing comments about the range being 1-2miles at most. That *could* be good enough or may not be depending on how buildings and stuff effect it in our specific use case. I guess the only way to find out would be to try :).

@kelbot So in your use case (both ends of the conversation in a building, presumably in a city) you will not be getting the "at most" range from any of these. That's the most challenging scenario for radios and it may be that none of them, FRS, GMRS, DLR, etc, are capable of it. The only way to know is to try.

The testing I did had one radio in a building and the other in a car -- also a challenging scenario -- but it was in a rural area. So expect less range than I got with everything.

@jgoerzen Ok, thanks for all the input. I'm going to have a think about it before I buy anything. Maybe trying one of the "good" cheap ones that have weather radio functionality would be a good start and if they fail to work in our situation then we at least have weather radios. Then we could try the Motorolas after that if we decide we still want to.

@kelbot Makes sense! Incidentally if you live in an area that is prone to severe weather, you might consider a tabletop weather radio with SAME. I can discuss that some more but it's a whole different topic These FRS ones will let you listen to WX radio but may not be very effective at alerting you to weather warnings.

@jgoerzen We get some severe weather here but not usually as dangerously severe as we had back in KS. The bigger slower severe weather events we always know of well ahead of time because my wife is a meteorologist.

@kelbot Man, get your amateur radio license! These things are so darn fun. APRS is really awesome - supports short messages, telemetry (esp. weather stations), and GPS position reporting. Forms an ad-hoc mesh. Has gateways to email. Many handheld radios that have keyboards. Lots of frequency bands, lots of high repeaters for great range, various Internet backhauls.... and if you get into HF, talk to Japan with a wire in your yard.

@brie @kelbot The protocol is proprietary, but that has got to be what they're doing. There's no other way to explain the behavior I've seen.

@kelbot Yeah, the batteries for the DLR are about $35 for a new Motorola OEM or about $10 for a roll-the-dice generic clone on Amazon that may or may not have the stated capacity/quality/etc. That spec sheet will give you the part numbers you need. Lots of Motorola dealers carry them. It's the BT90. One eBay vendor put a Motorola BT51 cell phone battery in a DLR. Much less capacity but I guess it works.

@Anarcat I should probably have been more explicit... none of those are encrypted so I agree the likes of NSA could intercept anything (and I would say I would assume they could intercept anything a phone transmits also; Signal may be better there because of E2E security, but there is also well-known tracking of phone positions and such.)

But I do think the chances that the NSA or some other highly-skilled and resourced entity are in your geographical proximity monitoring your comms are low.

@jgoerzen yeah for sure it depends of your threat model, i just think it's good people don't expect state-level protection from those kind of devices... say all you want about cell phones, it's at least technically possible to use that technology to protect against state actors (barring compromised hardware of course)

@Anarcat Fair point. I'll update the article to make that clear. Thanks!

@jgoerzen thanks so much! again, great stuff and thank you for spending the time to spell it out! certainly something i would have had to try to write otherwise (and it seems i would have failed, not knowing DLR and friends...)

@Anarcat @kelbot I updated the article with a few clarification points, and added an appendix about the Trisquare eXRS (spoiler: I don't recommend them, but they were an early entrant in the 900MHz FHSS space). Thanks!

@jgoerzen @kelbot yeah read about that when i saw the other comments, interesting stuff!

@float13 Not legally; for most of those services, every radio that operates on them must be certified for doing so, and the FCC will not certify a radio for multiple services, and it is illegal to use an uncertified radio.

1/

@float13
In my experience in a remote spot there is unlikely to be anybody nearby to hear you on any radio. The possible exception may be ham radio, if there is a repeater near enough to use. But simplex radios -- ones that just talk to each other without any external infrastructure, like I talked about here -- are limited enough in range that if you're in a place remote enough to worry about finding help, you may find nobody close enough on the right channel to hear you. 2/

@float13 For hiking emergencies, I carry a personal satellite messenger. The Garmin Inreach and Zoleo are my favorites. $10 to $40/mo, work anywhere on the planet you get a clear view of sky . Both have a SOS button that connects you to the global GEOS IERCC. InReach is light, tiny, and battery lasts a very long time, and can text w/o a paired phone. Zoleo has more messaging features.
3/

@float13 The sat messengers aren't great for coordinating a group, due to the multi-minute lag time, but they can work in a pinch of course. They can let you keep in touch with home, with GPS tracking and short messages. Also they don't work indoors. Very good safety equipment though! I definitely take one with me on any remote hike. I only take along a radio if I'm hiking with the family, don't bother for a solo hike. 4/

@float13 The other thing about GMRS is that due to heavy traffic in more populated areas, most people activate "privacy codes" (which don't obscure your messages, but help keep you from hearing everyone else's). I doubt many would think to remove those codes when in the wilderness... so the chance of reaching someone on GMRS would be low. CB is HF and too bulky for most people to consider taking on a hike. repeaterbook.com can show if there are ham repeaters nearby. Hope this helps! end/