@Jasmap,
somehow I only now read your part about skiing differs mountains. As long as the face each other you are good. If they are next to each other you can usually make it work. If they are back to back, no dice.
a citizens band radio with repeater, would indeed work, as
@pchewn mentions, but I’m not sure I’d want to do that with a kid. I have a hard enough time keeping my kids from chattering on the radio on the FRS bands.
I think, if it truly is long distance of facing opposite ways, just using your phones, with a text message. You don’t need the instant reply in that case anyway, wich is the whole point of using a radio instead of a phone.
The reason we use the radio is:
1: we ski with 8 people, and in the past, the youngest didn’t have a phone (Then 5 and 8). This way, everyone hears it all at once.
2: we are skiing together, or in two groups, usually near each other. At most, on two connected mountains, like Winter Park and Mary Jane.
3: biggest use of the radio is making sure everyone takes the same splits, and not waiting to long for people coming in and out of the trees. With the radio, you can yell: “keep left!”, as you see them heading for the right split
.
Or ask: “I exited the trees onto groomer X, are you still on your way out, or did you exit to the other side?” When you don’t see them appear at the end of a tree run.
That is where a radio and shoulder mic is useful. But if you are on different mountains, you just need something to say: ”let’s meet up at 13:45 at location X”. Text message is great for that.