So what's your recommendation?

From what I have read, FRS is only good for about 2miles.

For the same price (Fry's Electronics) you can get GMRS with a 5mile reach.

Can GMRS communicate with FRS?

Thanks
Mark

I think I found the answer to can they communicate

GMRS - 22 CHANNELS (7 FRS/GMRS, 7 FRS, 8 GMRS) 10mile range $29.99

So am I correct that GMRS does commuicate with FRS and in which case why would anyone want FRS seeing it doesn't reach the same distance and is close to the same price?

Thanks for your advice.

Cheers
Mark

FRS does not require a license. With GMRS you are supposed to have a license - not that anyone does. Out of millions of handheld GMRS users I am probably one of a few hundred that actually paid $60 for a license.

Also, at one time, 8 channel FRS radios were less expensive than the FRS/GMRS. An 8 channel FRS can probably still be bought much cheaper. So if you want to spend a couple of dollars for a radio that your 4 year old can play with and destroy get an FRS. For any adult use, the 22 channel FRS/GMRS are so inexpensive that there is no reason to get anything less.

The extra GMRS channels give you a better chance to get away from interference - like the 4 year olds playing hide-and-seek with their $5 Donald Duck FRS radios.

FRS/GMRS radios operate aroung 400 MHz making them line-of-sight devices. The ranges given by the manufactureers are what you could expect given the most ideal conditions. Still, in the open desert they do pretty good and are great for communication between vehicles in a caravan or around a campsite in most all terrain. I prefer the higher powered GMRS radios, 2-3 watts, for whatever little range advantage the extra power can give me (even though increase in range is no more than the square root of the increase in power)

Great info and amusing too

Thanks,

Mark

The type you should get depends on the use. What/where will you be using it? Depending on use, you may also want to consider a MURS radio. It's VHF instead of UHF and so has a different range of uses and can get better distance in certain situations. The downside with MURS is that it's relatively new and there aren't many radios on the market yet. So it's a lot more $$$.

I've used the Motorola Talkabouts in caravans to/from the tracks and some large BMW meets and on the mountains while snowboarding. They work great in the car but the actual range is about 1/2 mile on the road, less if it's hilly. This is with the really old talkabouts that first came out. I've since bought a set of 5950 which seem better but I haven't used them enough but they do seem better than the 1st gen radios.

I've been thinking about installing a cb radio in the 4Runner. That among a few hundred other things .