Recs on suggested equipment to purchase

[Evolricy]

Hello all, New to GMRS. I decided to go this route because i believe its the best option for my needs. I work approx. 12 linear miles away from home and my wife works from home.

I would like some recs on what equipment is best for my scenario: I would like to communicate with her in case of emergencies with a min of 15-20 mile range. I live in the San Fernando Valley (CA) and currently can see a few repeaters I may be able to access. 

Options I can entertain: (1) 2 handheld units that can easily be utilized by my wife. (2) 1 handheld unit and 1 mobile unit I would install in my car. (3) 1 handheld unit for her and 1 handheld / mobile combo for me.

If possible i would prefer Option (3) because I would use the mobile while driving then switch to a handheld when I arrive to my destination and need to bring the handheld along.

Please let me know if you need any additional info to assist in recs.

Thanks!

 

 

[Socalgmrs]

Yup.  Any ht cheap or expensive will all tx about the same distance so I’d start with a couple cheap hts with 771 antennas.  See how that works out.   Then upgrade from there. Ideally you would have a 20-50w base station at home with a big tall antenna such as a comet 712 efc up as high as you could go. 30, 40, 50’…. Then a good 20-50w in the car/truck with a good antenna such as an mxt26 or comet 2x4 installed correctly     But you may not need that much to start out.  

[WRUE951]

33 minutes ago, Evolricy said:

Hello all, New to GMRS. I decided to go this route because i believe its the best option for my needs. I work approx. 12 linear miles away from home and my wife works from home.

I would like some recs on what equipment is best for my scenario: I would like to communicate with her in case of emergencies with a min of 15-20 mile range. I live in the San Fernando Valley (CA) and currently can see a few repeaters I may be able to access. 

Options I can entertain: (1) 2 handheld units that can easily be utilized by my wife. (2) 1 handheld unit and 1 mobile unit I would install in my car. (3) 1 handheld unit for her and 1 handheld / mobile combo for me.

If possible i would prefer Option (3) because I would use the mobile while driving then switch to a handheld when I arrive to my destination and need to bring the handheld along.

Please let me know if you need any additional info to assist in recs.

Thanks!

 

 

aside from communicating in that zoo,  i would try a couple cheap handhelds first and try to connect through one of the repeaters (of course asking permission to use)  My experience using GMRS in your area is hit and miss and very busy..     Good Luck  

[TDM827]

Kind of comes down to personnel preference and how you plan on using things. Sounds like use of a repeater will be part of your plan.

Option 3 is cool because it justifies spending more money and having more toys! LOL

Seriously, option 3 seems like pretty good way to go if you want to meet your communications goals and have some flexibility on multiple radios to use without too much hassle.

If you want to save some cash initially, and see if you actually like the handhelds you decide on, option two should meet your needs if you have close by and reliable repeaters available to you.    

Once you figure out what option you will choose consider implementing external / removable antennas. Of course this is not really needed if your handheld "rubber duck" antennas hit the repeater fine.

Removable antennas include a vehicle mounted GMRS antenna (Midland, and other manufacturers make lots of them), check Amazon.  You can connect a removable antenna to your mobile or handheld and it will almost certainly improve your radio experience in the car .

If you want to use your mobile or handheld at home like a base radio. You can connect either radio to a larger external (outside the house on the roof, on a tower, or in the attic) omni-directional antenna. Again Amazon is your friend, and you can find plenty of recommendations here using the search function.

You can get a decent entry level external antenna for around $80 to $150. And you would need to calculate cost of your cable run, depending on quality of cable and length of run. This will most certainly improve your simplex, radio to radio, experience and increase you coverage / range overall>        

[Haroldo]

If you buy 2 handhelds, you'll need to utilize a repeater to communicate at the distance mentioned. That is the easiest, most economic way to start. I have a Baofeng 5RM that fits the bill for this kind of use.

At that distance apart, a handheld won't make it that far (from your home to your work). Without having to setup an antenna on the roof, 2 handhelds using a repeater will get you the coverage that you need. I do have a magmount car antenna stuck on a pizza pan that gives me good coverage, but I hit the repeater without it using the 5RM. As long as you can hit the repeater, your TX goes as far as the repeater will take it. If you and your wife can hit the same repeater, the 2 HTs will be all that you need (as long as the repeater is working).

I use that handheld in the car with a speaker/mic effectively, and I can hit a repeater that covers from Orange County to the San Fernando Valley successfully. I have not used the external mount up to this time.

There may be a repeater in the SFV that covers the entire area that you can use. There are a couple of strong signals on .600, .700, and .725. .600 is primarily Spanish. .700 and .725 seem to be mixed.

[WRTC928]

Any way you approach it, what you want to do is going to involve a good antenna with a lot of elevation, either your own or a repeater. You simply can't reliably get communication at 12 miles without it. I have occasionally, when all the stars aligned and the radio gods were smiling, gotten ~20 miles HT-to-HT, but we were both on elevated terrain features. Most of the time, you'll be lucky to get more than 3 miles. I have no idea what the terrain is where you want to communicate, but there's no harm in taking two HTs and trying. If it's hilltop-to-hilltop, you might pull it off. If there are good repeaters in your area, that's probably your best bet. I can hit most of the local GMRS repeaters with a handheld from about 15-25 miles away because they're on elevated terrain features and have tall antennas. In CA, you have to expect that repeaters may be extremely busy. That doesn't mean you can't make it work, but you have to be aware that at any given moment, the repeater may be busy. 

Depending upon the terrain, you might be able to get the distance you need with a base unit and high antenna at your house -- the higher the better. I live on an elevated terrain feature and have a really good antenna on a 30' flagpole at my house, but my repeater's performance is still a bit lackluster. I hope to get another 20' of elevation in the reasonably near future, but as you may guess, there are technical issues to be overcome. 

[BoxCar]

AS others have stated, its about location, location, and location. Scadacore has tools that will allow you to see if there are obstacles, like hills, between your work and house. You can also use it to see which repeaters can be used (assuming you know where the repeater is physically located) between your house ad the repeater and your work and the same repeater. Of course, just listening for the same repeater at both locations also works. You'll need to test if you can reach the repeater using your handheld at your office and home as it may require either better antennas or more power at both locations. The key piece in any situation is the antenna used. My recommendation is for a small (20-25W mobile at the house with an external antenna and not a handheld. Two handhelds are great for unit to unit conversations when you are outside, but can be iffy in connecting to repeaters because of the lower power/