Malsingmaps Forum

I am starting this thread for anyone who is interested in Walkie-Talkie which is meant for General Public.

That means anyone in the public can buy them. No need for special reason/justification. What I mean is no need for Registered company, or RELA, or Police, or HAM, or Security company, etc.

We can discuss USA systems (GMRS & FRS), Malaysian systems (FRS), Singapore systems, European systems (PMR), or any other such public systems.

In the past few years, I have seen many different models of Walkie Talkies which are on sale in Departmental Stores & Electronics Shops in the USA, Penang, KL & Singapore.

Just wondering if anyone else have interest for such devices. Can discuss here.

Here are some of the more popular brands I have seen.

Aztech
Motorola Talkabout
Uniden
Garmin Rino
Midland Radio
Cobra
Shiro

.

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Regards,
Francis T Lim.

anyone has good recommendation for cheap and reliable model of this walkie-talkie?

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I'm just a small fry, plz dun bully me

Interesting indeed.

I used to have a set bought from Cobra that has a range, as they claim, 3 kms. This was a much earlier version which I thought may come in handy in a Big hall at the Dog shows. To my disappointment, not only the rechargeable batteries are sucked dry in no time, one has to leave them on or it defeats the purpose altogether, and the audio for reception is disputable for considering it as acceptable despite the squelch is at its maximum to suppress interference.

I found a better solution... using two older Nokia Hp with pre paid cards is the absolute solution instead....

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I am thinking of upgrading my Talkabout 25 miles range to handheld UHF/VHF set.

I used to play with Talkabout set from 5 miles .... till now 25 miles. It is ideal for convoy with large group of vehicles, to communicate with friends/relatives staying nearby, in shopping malls (group of friends shop separately in foreign land).... etc

Anyone want my set can PM me. Sorry mod, should I post this in trading post (not related to GPS)?

I have a pair of Uniden GMR635-2(22 Channels) series bought about 8 years ago. Still working today. Back then I bought it at Fry's Electronics ( large electronics chain store ) in San Jose when it was on sale at USD29.99.

http://www.uniden.com/products/productd ... t=GMR635-2

Been using it with group travels up north to Malaysia when we travel in more than 1 vehicles as well as some vacations when we communicate in Huge Malls, Theme parks like disneyland, universal studios etc.... Claims to have a 6 mile range with 22 channels but then this is line of sight. So far only negative thing about it that is has to use x4 AAA batteries which means I need x8 to use in both sets. Battery life is decent when using rechargables ( 1000mAh ). About 4-5 hours.

Anyway the manufacturers posted range does not tell you the whole truth as they do not explain what their test conditions are. All these walkie talkie are pretty much on a narrow band width ie.. 462mhz band, what this translates to is that it's pretty much line of sight as at this frequency, the radio waves does not bend much. If you can see the person or a little further out of sight with some trees / objects like that in between you and the other person, you will be able to talk to them. . If you have hills, valleys, large tall buildings between you and the person you are trying to talk too, you will have problems hearing them.

IMHO when buying GMRS Walkie Talkies, it's not the wattage or range that is important, it's the feature set on each radio that should be the main draw to a particular radio.

Yes, lotsa hypes. Been using FRS since '02, on my 2nd set now - Midland GXT-300. Have not used them for a while, the novelty has worn off I guess.

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what's the feature that we need to look for ?

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I'm just a small fry, plz dun bully me

Some of features to look out for. choose a set that meets your needs :

a. Type of battery used, is this common or custom rechargable type
b. Battery life
c. Water resistance / Water proof
d. Vibration alert
e. auditory clarity / anti interference feature
f. Number of channels / interference codes
g. Channel auto scanning function
h. hands-free use with an optional VOX headset support
i. Back-lit display
j. Changeable call tones
k. vibration alert
l. Talk confirmation
m. Clock / Alarm function
n. keypad lock
o. weight
p. Looks

Some points to note :

These off the shelf commercial "walkie-talkies" are quite useful only for certain outdoor activities. The GMRS ( general mobile radio service ) frequency allocated can penetrate at most 1 km in our tropical jungle... but typically 300 m is more the usual.
For jungle trekking, it is better to get one that operates in the VHF range than the UHF version. The reason is that VHF signals propagates through vegetation a lot better than UHF (which normally bounces off obstacles instead of going through).
IMHO you will need a minimum of 0.5 watt VHF/UHF to operate at distances of 1 km or more. Depending on the density of the intervening vegetation, sometimes, even 2 watts UHF is not enough.

me & my car club bought kenwood 3107. we fully used 'em during our 13-car convoy to hatyai. good reception & battery last more than whole day usage. we can talk from our hotel (tall building) to hatyai town center. highly recommended

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