Radio's

pjjk90

Hi. I dunno where to post this so Id post it here. I bought 2 way radios on eBay last week, they claimed to be 26mile/42km working distance. I know this is over flat land/sea, but the greatest distance I can achieve is under a mile. They're made by Midland(product code GXT700) and are 5watt power and work on frequencies around 467mHz I think. Does anyone know can I boost the signal strength even slightly?
Thanks in advance, if theyre is another forum for this tell me
Thanks

lawhec

I suspected these radios wouldn't be legal for use in Ireland (or the UK for that matter) so I did a Google and indeed that's the case. They are GMRS radios that are intended for the North American market, and even need a licence over there to use beyond an ERP of 0.5 watts.

My advice would be to forget about them and look for a PMR 446 two-way radio set.

Alun

AFAIK these are illegal to use here in Ireland. They use a system called FRS or Family Radio Service, which is a US based system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Radio_Service). In the UK these frequencies are used by some Emergency Services and can cause interference. I don't know about here, but I wouldn't want to chance it.

There's a similar system here in Ireland and the rest of Europe called PMR446 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMR446).

In short, you can't just go around transmitting on any old frequency, the radio spectrum here is regulated, and for a good reason, and buying this kind of stuff from eBay is just asking for trouble. I'd send them back and get your money back, if you can.

SPDUB

Alun wrote:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Radio_Service).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMR446).
.

No such article(s) at those links

pjjk90

ok, for several reasons I think I'll sell these on... Can anyone give me another decent brand/model that does good range, and is legal here.
Thanks

byte

SPDUB wrote:

No such article(s) at those links

Take the bracket ) off the end of the link.

This really isn't the right forum for your query, but I am not sure where else to put it at the moment.

gerryo

byte wrote:

Take the bracket ) off the end of the link.

This really isn't the right forum for your query, but I am not sure where else to put it at the moment.

Maybe in Tech -> Consumer Electronics -> Hobby Radio

Alun

SPDUB wrote:

No such article(s) at those links

Corrected .. the automatic tagging of URL's seems to go a bit wrong sometimes and includes characters that aren't in the URL itself.

byte

gerryo wrote:

Maybe in Tech -> Consumer Electronics -> Hobby Radio

Aha!

Moved to Hobby Radio.

pjjk90

So can anyone give me another decent brand/model that does good range?

OKenora

You won't get good range on any of them for 2 reasons. 1 : they are limited in power to make sure they do not cause interference 2: they use frequencies that are essentially line of sight usage. In day to day terms that means a mile range would be good.

EDIT: ^^^ ignore those comments if you live on top of a mountain though

watty

The original suppliers lied.

Unless you are up high with CB on USB you won't get anything close to 20 miles licence free, For more range you need a Wireless Experimenter Licence (Radio Amateur), but even then on car battery (50W radio) or home base.

Though I have a handheld that can do 1500 Miles @ 5W during the day easily, it can't easily do 25 miles. The 500 Miles is "skip" to Scandanavia or Eastern Europe on 18MHz. Licence required. And that was using a 21' whip. A 25W rig will do similar on an 8ft whip, but the 24V battery back & the radio are fairly heavy on the shoulder strap.