Here are the usual caveats. We're all adults ( well age wise ) , so what anyone decides to do is up to them. The idea is not to have a shouting match ( see what i did there), but to give you guys some views.
What became apparent is that for our use it could be argued that there are many variables/variants that could be trialled, the bottom line is that you could choose something that is more/less effective - BUT if the others aren't in the same game then you'll not get the real benefit. By which i mean; if everyone else in the world has a super smart phone and you have a Nokia 6310 - you can still talk to them and they you, but if you run a 'rig' that has a longer/shorter range you'll dip in/out of the 'usefullness' - because either you'll hear then and won't be able to respond or vice versa.
So what did we do.
we had the Baofengs supposedly outputting at 4 watts, or whatever they really do ( without proper checking gear it could have been 3 watts or 3.5 or..., but in reality we know according to the spec's that it was more than a 'normal' .5 watt PMR).
We had the magnetic aerials around 40cm high.
These were mounted in 2 different positions during the trial and at the end we tried 1 stubby aerial on N's unit.
First trial.
Aerial was on top of my rollbar ( only place above the rear deck where i could get a solid mount as didnt have time to lash up a temporary platform for it to sit on). Neils was inside the boot with about 15cm showing above the rear cover.
Neil had his crash helmet + speakers inside, i had the supplied with kit cheapy over the ear joke with a tiny mic which had the PTT button on it.
soooooo. we averaged clearly a little over .5 mile.
Neil came through perfectly in my ear piece ( had my ear defenders over the top of the receiver), my responses became muffled/noisy due to the wind noise.
we trialled that for a few miles. At that .5 mile range it was crystal clear.
Trial 2.
both aerials on top of rollbars.
i swapped the cheapy ear piece/mic for a more expensive one, with a boom mic. So still single ear piece which i had under the defenders and the boom was a thin arm.
Too thin to withstand faster driving and again the wind noise was a bit naughty at higher speeds. ( N lent me an additional foam cover and this i believe made things crystal clear again up to about 50-60 ).
distance: we managed over 4 miles for some distance, but i would say that sensibly over quite some time we hit more than 2. So i would think that this would be the minimum baseline.
and i would say that when we weren't pushing the boundaries the clarity was good, infact often crystal clear.
Trial 3
as above but N had the stubby on his unit not the bigger aerial.
Managed no more than .6 of a mile and the trial was not long, so not sure how consistent that would be.
Ease of use & usefullness.
1/ PTT button needs to be somewhere sensible, having it on the Mic is not an option. I drove way too many miles 1 handed today. But this is easily overcome.
2/ Units - doddle, although once on/set to the channel they want to be somewhere where you won't knock them around - in case you inadvertently change a channel. These ones are small and seem quite robust.
3/ aerial to units is simple coax + connector, unit to ear/mic is 1 cable - easy.
Obviously there was a lot of 'can you hear me' - to test the range. But in the latter part of the run we deviated from the ITN and i guided Neil clearly although i was a good 2 miles+ down the road. At one point down a lane i came round a bend to find a tractor hedgecutting - a good example of a warning back down the line.
Interruptions/others.
at the end of the day as we parted ways we could hear someone else briefly. If i understand correctly CTCSS and the like is a tone that you can program into your device that helps keep 'chats' private. i wont try to explain how as although i think i have a fair idea i dont want to get it wrong and spark a debate. Suffice to say IF we're explroing this route with others buying gear - we would all want & need to program a weird/unusual 'tone'frequency for that CTCSS to stop 99.9% of unwelcomed calls/announcements. This is easy enough to do, but if folks havent done this, then their transmissions to the others would NOT be heard!
Cost of the gear today came in around £60 per car - WITHOUT the ear piece, the one i had that was effective for me was about £20, might be worth try9ing a throat mic that uses muscle movement rather than words to transmit. They can also be had for that sort of money.
Aerial - could be that a cheaper one would be as effective, thing is without doing back to back trials you'll never know!
so guess the price point is £80 and upward to as much as you want to spend on the hearing/speaking side ( Peltors and the like don't come cheap ).
My own opinion of the units for our type of use ( unit meaning radio) - for MY use.
i'm torn between this unit and going for the larger 8watt one. before anyone jumps up and down. I haven't researched this to the nth degree as it came up in conversation earlier. But i know that many of these can be programmed to output on pmr at a lower level - not the full 8 watts! The reason for considering this is that I might be tempted to do the 'Ham Exam' - as N posted earlier in this thread its £27 for the actual exam and that allows use of units up to 10 watts. NOT on PMR of course! For that to be effective a few guys would have to join the party - otherwise we'd have the majority on PMR band and 1-2 on a different frequency range. Potentially you're looking at an average of 6-10 miles ( poss more).
from my side overall.
i've hankered after car to car for a while.
It only makes sense if a few come to the party.
This set up worked and has a viable cost threshold ( i imagine for those that would be interested ).
If others want to remain fully legit - then there's still a use, and in truth at that price point prob worth doing. Possibly by trial and error you might find that an integral aerial that's longer than a normal stubby on a 'norma'l PMR radio gives a performance that's not far off what we had. On that point we don't know, and frankly for me, i'd rather not play a game of seeing what does/not work ( for my purposes). So...i'll stick with what i have, or will upgrade to a 8watt unit with a view to doing the exam ( if others fancy that route as well).
N - over to you fella for your thoughts on today?
