C. B. radio users??????????? question.

My father and I have communication problems. When we pass each other in the hay field, he makes all kinds of hand gestures of what he wants me to do.

Of course, I most of the time have no clue what he is trying to get across to me. He has now resorted to calling my cell phone every 3 minutes it seems, which is driving me crazy.

I know a bunch of you larger farmers have radios in your tractors and trucks. Have any of you found a good deal on a decent set of radios that we could mount in the tractors and the two trucks?

Oh, we are usually in the same field working, so the range is very minimal. When we are not in the same field, we usually are no more than 1/2 mile apart, woods between us, no further than 1 mile, tops.

Thanks for your replys.

Marshall

How about some portable 2-way radios?

http://www.southernce.com/products.asp?dept=72

I have Kenwoods but much cheaper sets can be bought!

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_...21x00003a&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=00399459000P

CB sounds like a good solution for this. They have portables like dawg mentioned and they have emergency ones where everything is in a shoe box sized container. Or you could get the permanent mounted radios. This would cost the most but would give the strongest signal also. Ebay might have some good prices on CB's of all types.

If you decide to go the cb radio route I strongley suggest you get one with a built in swr meter.Like a Cobra 29ltd classic or Uniden pc76xl.On any mobile/base unit if your swr,s are not low you will burn up parts(mostly finals) on your radio in notime.
Boone

I to would recommend the hand-held versions.

Unless your tractors have cabs, a permanent mounted CB will get ruined from the elements (and dust).

The hand-held can go in your shirt pocket. We also use headsets so you don't even need to take the radio out of your pocket.

Once you have them, you'll find 100 other uses for them.

BC, I leaned away from recommending those cause the ones I have were very short range. I have hills and woods in the mix but could not even get 1/2 mile with them. That was 7 years ago. Maybe they've improved. What distance can you're small portables go, could they get up to the mile the OP asked for?

I consider them pretty much "line of sight" radios. I have no problems with woods but the signal does fade quickly if you're on the other side of a mountain. I've found this to be true of a full-sized CB as well but because of their antennas (and frequency?), they seem to do better.

FRS has the shortest range but they're getting better. GMRS may be closer to a CB but I think you're supposed to register to transmit on them.

In the OP, I took it as communications needed when you're in the same field and can see each other.

Marshall said:

My father and I have communication problems. When we pass each other in the hay field, he makes all kinds of hand gestures of what he wants me to do.

Of course, I most of the time have no clue what he is trying to get across to me. He has now resorted to calling my cell phone every 3 minutes it seems, which is driving me crazy.

I know a bunch of you larger farmers have radios in your tractors and trucks. Have any of you found a good deal on a decent set of radios that we could mount in the tractors and the two trucks?

Oh, we are usually in the same field working, so the range is very minimal. When we are not in the same field, we usually are no more than 1/2 mile apart, woods between us, no further than 1 mile, tops.

Thanks for your replys.

Marshall

Click to expand...

Marshall
Someone tried to pm me regarding this post on NTT.
We had power failer and I lost message.
If it was you please try again,if not please accept my appoliegy.If you go cb route I can help you over phone.
Boone

Doc said:

BC, I leaned away from recommending those cause the ones I have were very short range. I have hills and woods in the mix but could not even get 1/2 mile with them. That was 7 years ago. Maybe they've improved. What distance can you're small portables go, could they get up to the mile the OP asked for?

Click to expand...

bczoom said:

I consider them pretty much "line of sight" radios. I have no problems with woods but the signal does fade quickly if you're on the other side of a mountain. I've found this to be true of a full-sized CB as well but because of their antennas (and frequency?), they seem to do better.

FRS has the shortest range but they're getting better. GMRS may be closer to a CB but I think you're supposed to register to transmit on them.

In the OP, I took it as communications needed when you're in the same field and can see each other.

Click to expand...

My Kenwood Freetalks haven't an issue with one mile although the 4 mile range claimed is suspect due to terrain.

Not me.

wasnt me bull breaker. I have posted this message in three different forums though.

Thanks for the replies. I have two of the handheld radios that I bought for hunting about 6 years or so ago. They work ok, but pop cant hear them that good. He also has a case of the dumb thumb when he is trying to talk / transmit with that recessed button on the side.

Marshall

Marshall said:

Thanks for the replies. I have two of the handheld radios that I bought for hunting about 6 years or so ago. They work ok, but pop cant hear them that good. He also has a case of the dumb thumb when he is trying to talk / transmit with that recessed button on the side.

Click to expand...

They now make handheld speaker/microphone setups for FRS radios. It has the look and feel of a CB microphone.

Here's an example.
http://www.hitechwireless.com/Flare-Compact-Speaker-Microphone-P562.aspx

I have a version of this ..........

Headset with push to talk

Lots of options here only limited by how much you want to spend. We have a UHF repeater on a tower and use handhelds. We've invested about $5000 in this. It would have been much more, but I have the tools and techincal know how to do the work myself. We get about a ten mile radius with our handhelds, mobiles quite a bit more.

There are three license free services that will work for you if you are only trying to cover a small area.

FRS - Family Radio Service. This is licensed by rule so no individual license is required. These are low power (0.5 watts) handheld radios that operate in the GMRS portion of the UHF band (462 - 467 MHz). They advertise as have awesome range. In reality, if you can see the other person, you can talk to them. If you can't see them, you may or may not be able to talk to them. UHF does great in urban areas, but not so great in the woods because the signal is absorbed by leaves and esp. pine needles.

MURS - Multi Use Radio Service. This is licensed by rule so no individual license is required. This is a VHF radio service that has four channels. Two watts is the maximum power level required. You can have a base station, but there are some limits to antenna height and gain.

CB - Citizen Band. This is licensed by rule so no individual license is required. This is the low band (27 Mhz) AM radio service that has been around for ever. The legal limit is 4 watts. Because it is a low frequency, it is hard to have an efficent antenna system because the antennas are quite large. A quarter wave antenna for CB is 102". I know there are lots of base loaded coil antennas that are smaller, but those are a compromise because there is less capture area for the antenna to receive with.

Now for the more costly, licensed services...

GMRS - General Mobile Radio Service. Basically a higher powered version of FRS. You can have 4 watt handhelds, 50 watt mobiles and base stations, and you can have repeaters with no limit on antenna height or gain. A license is required. It's $75 for 5 years and anyone in your immediate family can operate under your license.

If you are trying to cover a larger area, you may want to contact one of your local radio shops and see if anyone has a community repeater or trunked system you can subscribe to. If you are only wanting to talk a couple of miles, then GMRS or MURS will work fine. If you are only needing to talk back and forth around the field, then FRS will work.

NEXTEL, or since you are in Georgia, Southernlinc are a couple of wide area two-way radio systems that also have the ability to make phone calls. NEXTEL is sold like cellular, but it is actually an ESMR - Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio service that has trunked two-way radio with cellular styled interconnect(phone calls). Southernlinc is another ESMR provider. These two will give you wide area coverage, along with a large monthly bill.

Hope this helps...

RJ

Thanks for the education on various types of radios available.

Keifer, a RTV wannabe