Looking for the ultimate Hiking Radio with support for 2m,70cm,GMRS,MURS

[pcradio]

20 hours ago, nokones said:

A good high end radio that will cover all bands is the Motorola APX8000 radio.

I did look at that. But I could buy 16 vx6r's for the same price.

[Lscott]

The real question is do you really need access to all those bands all the time? If the people in your group are spread out over those you have a bigger problem. You would be better off picking one band and sticking to it.

[pcradio]

2 hours ago, Lscott said:

The real question is do you really need access to all those bands all the time?

Well, I've had a lot more experience now. No, I don't need it. 2m/70cm and GMRS/FRS are all that is really needed because that is what most people are using anyway. However, that still forces the APX 7000/8000 requirement.

I don't know of a true rugged GMRS radio that can compete with the VX-6R/7R. Again, all this silly market segmentation I've had to go through.

Unless I'm mistaken, the only radios that are still in production and come close to meeting my simple requirements are the VX-6R or APX-8000. That is an extremely wide gap. Used radios no longer manufactured don't count. I should be able to buy new and recommend to others.

The FT3D was a really cool radio, until you take it outside on extended hikes. A silly speaker mic connector design. Not rugged at all. Forced touch screen requirements for some settings. Yadda Yadda. The VX-6R works, but only just so. Its DW feature is really, really broken. Super hard to actually watch two frequencies in actual use.

[bobthetj03]

The FT-65 will do this. Yeah, it doesn't dual watch, but how many stations are you scanning when on the trail? Set up a bank to scan the critical stations and it'll scan faster than you need.