Talking afterwards, we all agreed that the MURS radio sounded slightly better (less interference) but both were pretty clear. The furthest I could walk on her property without trespassing on the neighbors property was around 0.4 miles (according to my GPS)īoth radios were able to stay in contact with home base and communication was equally effective at all points around the property.
Unfortunately, it's only been spring for a few weeks, so the foliage on the trees hasn't really come out in full yet. The woods on her property is what I would call a "medium density" forest. I used both the 1.5w ERP GMRS radio and the 1.34w ERP MURS radio to test out the ranges. So I visited a friend's 100 acre property over this past weekend and walked all over her property. (4-watts and 27Mhz) And we could always erect an inverted-V antenna for the base station unit. Although the handy-talkies are bigger/heavier than GMRS radios, they have much greater distance. Without testing it, I'm pretty confident that 5-watts radios should work for us fine.Īs an alternative, I think we could possibly go with CB. I found my 1-watt radio was nearly viable from the farthest distance, but not reliably strong enough to penetrate the foliage. While I haven't tried it yet, I think 5-watt GMRS radios will probably do.
All of that said, I will probably apply for my own GMRS license so that I'm not in violation. We'll be confined to a 100 acre area and I doubt our transmissions will leave the property so I'm not too worried about violating FCC regulations. I realize the GMRS requires a license as well, but it seems to me that to a certain degree it isn't adhered to very strictly. It's only for 4 days and we can't get everyone really nice 2m HTs, much less licenses. We're going to have a bunch of random people show up and want to help. I'll keep it in mind, but it doesn't seem like an optimal solution at the moment. I can't really ask everyone to plunk down $100 each just to switch to a new system that may not even be that much better for what we're doing. The other problem that we have is that most people already have GMRS radios. Repeaters: MURS = n0 yu0! GMRS = yes, please.Ĭhannels: MURS = 5 channels GMRS = 20+ channels (?)Īvailability/cost: MURS are hard to find and run around $100+ GMRS are easy to find and frequently cost only $20 to $30. Since the GMRS uses higher frequencies, I guess it has to make up for faster attenuation with more power. (My Motorola T5500 only does 1w, though.) on frequencies shared with FRS, but up to 50w on GRMS only frequencies. Traditional CB (27Mhz) has them both beat in this category, though. MURS looks good, but doesn't look that much better than GMRS.įrequency: MURS uses 150Mhz (VHF) GMRS uses 460Mhz (UHF)Ī hills and foliage will degrade a 460Mhz signal a bit faster than it will a 150Mhz signal.