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Jasmap

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I did a search and didn't see what I was looking for exactly. We're looking for two-way radios for skiing that are good but cost effective. My son has reached the age where he's starting to do his own thing but not old enough to be totally out of contact (he's12). I saw the BCA radios but they were listed at $179 I think and that's way more than I want to spend. There's 3 of us but usually at least 2 of us are together so I only need 2 radios but 3 works too. Sometimes we can split to ski different mountains at the same resort so it'd need to be better than line of sight. Any experience or input?

Thanks!
 

peterm

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We use Midland radios purchased from REI. Well, when I say we I mean my wife has one and our daughter (13) has the other. Seem to work well enough and come in handy from time to time.
 
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Jasmap

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We use Midland radios purchased from REI. Well, when I say we I mean my wife has one and our daughter (13) has the other. Seem to work well enough and come in handy from time to time.
I was looking at some of those just now. Do you know which model you guys got?
 

Brock Tice

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You can get a 6 pack of Baofeng BF-888S radios on Amazon for $60 and run them on GMRS frequencies. It's not strictly legal but if you buy a GMRS license and make sure you set them correctly, nobody is going to care. You need the license for the BCA radios or the midlands as well unless you use FRS channels.
 
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peterm

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I was looking at some of those just now. Do you know which model you guys got?

Haha, we actually have two sets now because we left them behind on this trip and bought a new set the other day. The original ones are the GXT1000VP4 and we've had them for about 2 years. Work very well.

For the new set we decided to try the cheaper ones which are also a little smaller and less bulky to carry around. Looks like we got the T51VP3 or similar which retails for about $50. No complaints so far but have only been battle tested for a few days.
 

Slim

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We have 4 of the GXT1000 VP4 radio’s in our family, and they have been working well for several years now. I think they were $60 for a two pack.

The key part is to get the shoulder mike, that way the radio stays in your pocket or pack, and you can talk without messing with any of that. I can listen all the time, and even talk while skiing easier stuff.

So whichever brand/model you get, make sure you can find shoulder mikes that work with them.

And ignore the published ‘maximum range’ numbers, they a meaningless fantasy. Antenna size and transmitting Power are limited by law, so most radios will have similar effective ranges,
The effective range is more a matter of obstruction than of distance when using them in the mountains.

You need “Line of sight”, in radio terms, so not true visual line of sight, trees and wooden buildings are fine, but there can not be a mountain between the two radios.
Make sure both radios have the antenna oriented the same way(vertically).
 
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crgildart

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The key part is to get the shoulder mike, that way the radio stays in your pocket or pack, and you can talk without messing with any of that. I can listen all the time, and even talk while skiing easier stuff.

So whichever brand/model you get, make sure you can find shoulder mikes that work with them.


And ignore the published ‘maximum range’ numbers, they a meaningless fantasy. Antenna size and transmitting Power are limited by law, so most radios will have similar effective ranges,
The effective range is more a matter of obstruction than of distance when using them in the mountains.

You need “Line of sight”, in radio terms, so not true visual line of sight, trees and wooden buildings are fine, but there can not be a mountain between the two radios.
Make sure both radios have the antenna oriented the same way(vertically).

This was our experience as well. Might have been the fact we were using cheaper than top of line units, but that 22 mile or whatever range they give is really only peak to peak. If person A is in the skier's far left side and person B is on skier's far right both at the bottom with the mountain between (or front side A and back side B) the radios were useless. Eventually we'd connect though as long as one or both parties were on the move and not both staying in the dead zones.
 

Coach13

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We use o use the Motorola Talk Abouts when our kids were young. They worked great as long as we were on the same side of the mountain. They had a several mile range, were very inexpensive and have lasted forever. They still work and they are at least 10 years old.
 

pchewn

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It's not that hard to get a ham radio license, and then use the repeater that is often found on the top of mountains. The repeater makes the coverage area much greater. For example, the K7RPT repeater (147.120 MHz) at Timberline can be accessed all the way from my house in Beaverton, 78 miles from the ski area.

Ham Radio Repeaters, Clackamas County
 

Slim

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@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 ogsmile .
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.
 

James

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You can get a 6 pack of Baofeng BF-888S radios on Amazon for $60 and run them on GMRS frequencies. It's not strictly legal but if you buy a GMRS license and make sure you set them correctly, nobody is going to care. You need the license for the BCA radios or the midlands as well unless you use FRS channels.
Anyone familiar with MURS radios?
I guess not being compatible with FRS could be an advantage/disadvantage
Such as:
 

jonc

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Anyone familiar with MURS radios?
I guess not being compatible with FRS could be an advantage/disadvantage
Such as:
The MURS radios have a similar practical range to the GMRS radios. Though slightly lower power and not able to use repeaters or communicate with other typical store bought radios. They do avoid any licensing issues if that is a concern for you.
 

TheArchitect

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I have a pair of Motorola T460 radios I picked up at REI. I've also applied for the FCC license so I can use them on GMRS channels. The FRS is .5w but the GMRS channels on the T460 have tested at 1.7w and I wanted more power. Line of sight is everything, though. I've had low power Talkabouts for years with a 5 mile range. They worked pretty well unless there were good sized hills and valleys.
 

James

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Motorola now has the T-800, which is bringing in some new tech. You can pair with the phone and there’s an app to change settings. You can send locations and texts from phone through radio. Presumably to another unit/phone.
It’s FRS, 462-467mhz


The bottom of this Wild Snow article had good reference.
 
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jonc

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Motorola now has the T-800, which is bringing in some new tech. You can pair with the phone and there’s an app to change settings. You can send locations and texts from phone through radio. Presumably to another unit/phone.
It’s FRS, 462-467mhz


The T800 is an interesting idea allowing you to pair with an app on your phone that can send messages/location through the radio to another person with the same radio/app. You are still limited to low power FRS channels. Also the loss on data transmission is worse than voice so it would probably be more reliable to just speak the message.

There are some ham radio setups that do similar things on more powerful radios with built in GPS. Those would be better but it’s nice to see an attempt made on consumer friendly options.
 

James

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Well I've ordered these. They come in the PR446 frequencies for Europe. They're only 0.5W. I was going to just get frs/gmrs and program it. But, it's too complicated right now, plus likely they'll be used by kids. Hopefully they arrive before I leave.
What's the deal with dts or cts codes?

 

jonc

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Well I've ordered these. They come in the PR446 frequencies for Europe. They're only 0.5W. I was going to just get frs/gmrs and program it. But, it's too complicated right now, plus likely they'll be used by kids. Hopefully they arrive before I leave.
What's the deal with dts or cts codes?


Set the same code on both radios and they will filter out other people transmitting on the same channel. Sometimes you need to change channels or codes when there are other people around using the same.

Keep in mind that filtering out other transmissions does not mean yours are private. Other people on the same channel can listen to your transmissions but won’t be able to reach you unless they use the same CTCSS/DCS code.
 

Henry

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I've been frustrated with the mountain capability of the small hand held radios used by the public. (I'm used to commercial VHF hand helds.)

Why not just use cell phones to keep in touch? Buy everyone a tether to keep the phone attached to the person. One day on the old Solar Coaster lift at Blackcomb I saw a boarder sliding face first down the slope frantically trying to grab his cell phone that was sliding just a bit faster.
 

James

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Because cell phones often have no coverage? Plus for back and forth separated by time they're annoying.
Otherwise, that's why you rarely see radios on the hill now.

There's the PoC radios. Push to talk over cellular. Like Nextel used to be I guess.
 

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