Trail Communications

Tom said A couple of years ago when last spending some time on the site, there was a great deal of convo/posting in regards to "next level" radios for better trail communication.  Ham, FMRS, GMRS, CB were all in play to some point with the benefits and shortcomings of each.

What were the final decisions?  I've been looking for a sticky or a topic in "Trails", "Technical", etc. without any luck.

Just point me in the proper direction so I can be ready when March 20 rolls around.

Thanks!!

Tom

=====

Tom, This is the correct topic for all the discussions of good ideas that had come up. My idea was for a satellite phone, which nowadays is lot lower cost, but several proactive alternatives have been suggested as well. But, it all stopped resulting from the pandemic & was tabled until a future time where we could talk in person & discuss various ideas. Usually help is available somewhere close, as an example at the south end of our Strawberry trail at the Caltrans maintenance station; there is no cell service there & a land phone is available if someone is there. The solution is a short distance away, as Kirkwood does has cell service. There always should be someone around to help with a ride. But, there are other places that we travel that are less convenient where some other means of communications would be handy to have. There are logistics associated with that, but they could be overcome. I'm open to open up this subject again if other are willing.

Tom said A couple of years ago when last spending some time on the site, there was a great deal of convo/posting in regards to "next level" radios for better trail communication.  Ham, FMRS, GMRS, CB were all in play to some point with the benefits and shortcomings of each.

What were the final decisions?  I've been looking for a sticky or a topic in "Trails", "Technical", etc. without any luck.

Just point me in the proper direction so I can be ready when March 20 rolls around.

Thanks!!

Tom

=====

Most of the people in the club are currently are using a hand held ham. For example, like a Baofeng UV-5R Two way ham radio duel band 136-174/400-520mhz 5w walkie talkie. They are inexpensive and work great for trails runs. Be sure to do a little Research, there are a whole lot of different models and price ranges. Also hundreds of "nock-offs" copies. The UV-5R is a older model that works great and can find almost everywhere. I went to the actual Baofeng website https://baofengradio.us/ and to others to see what was best for me, also there is a bunch of Youtube videos of reviews and instruction to learn about the different models and features. There are different brands out there that may be better, but more expensive. Baofeng just seems to be everywhere. So you should be able to make a decision what will work best for you.

There are still some hold out CBer's, just because that's what is in their rigs already. But most use the Hams.

I actually have two (2) that I always bring. Your welcome to use one of them for the run if you don't get one by then. 👍 The club has channels that we always use, that allows the ones that don't have ham license to talk legally.

The club applied for and received an FCC license for some business band frequencies (like race radio channels).  The club has 5 dedicated frequencies and the Baofeng radios can use them as well as GMRS and FRS frequencies.  Many other hams can also access the club channels but some might need to be unlocked.

Once this COVID thing is over we are hoping that there will be some cheaper satellite based communication options for emergency use. But we are generally switching to HAM and the clubs business band channels.  Licensed HAM users have access to a wide range of repeaters available and very good coverage of the local trails.

On the trail- Business band radios on club channels have largely replaced CBs

For emergencies- Cell phones work on ~50% of the trails we normally do, HAM repeaters have over 95% of the local trails covered.  The future satellite option would be to fill that last 5% of areas where even ham doesn't work

Thanks for the update.  It will help with some upcoming decisions.

We have a rugged radio that we need to get unlocked and programed with the clubs channels.  Who can help us with this.  At the moment it is a paper weight.  LOL