Roll Call Alaska 2013
Just thought I'd start a thread regarding who will be starting up to Alaska in 2013. It would be nice if we could share information so everyone has a memorable and safe trip. We will be leaving aroun...
Forum Discussion
We tried a set of the "claimed 36 mile" FRS/GMRS radios when traveling to Alaska with my wife's sister and her husband. While they claimed to be good for many miles, we found them to be line of sight mostly. If we could see each other, we could talk to each other. Main problem we had was keeping both charged all day as they belonged to my BIL and he only had one car charger to plug in. Didn't take much transmitting to run the batteries down in a few hours.
The only way I can see you could ever talk a long distance apart would be to have both radios on mountain tops with nothing in between. Real life range is more in the .5 to 1.5km range (about a third of a mile, to a mile) is what we found.
Another problem to him, was at that time, 2009, they required a FCC license for use in the US, at a cost of $85. Not sure all the radios are licensable in Canada through Industry Canada. (Industry Canada is the equivalent of the FCC in the US in issuing radio licenses)
Most useful when we would stop at a mall or large store and split up to shop. We normally kept our cell phones turned off in Canada. Among the long haul truckers and the timber industry, VHF radios are popular. The large companies can lease the use of a certain frequency from Industry Canada to use. Much longer range radios, but still line of site in many cases.
The only way I can see you could ever talk a long distance apart would be to have both radios on mountain tops with nothing in between. Real life range is more in the .5 to 1.5km range (about a third of a mile, to a mile) is what we found.
Another problem to him, was at that time, 2009, they required a FCC license for use in the US, at a cost of $85. Not sure all the radios are licensable in Canada through Industry Canada. (Industry Canada is the equivalent of the FCC in the US in issuing radio licenses)
Most useful when we would stop at a mall or large store and split up to shop. We normally kept our cell phones turned off in Canada. Among the long haul truckers and the timber industry, VHF radios are popular. The large companies can lease the use of a certain frequency from Industry Canada to use. Much longer range radios, but still line of site in many cases.
