MURS handhelds?

jasons

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Thinking about replacing my 10+ year old FRS handhelds and am looking at MURS. I'll be using them to communicate while hiking / walking trails (mostly in the Middlesex Fells,) and at the range to talk to the pits during practice. Seems like VHF's lack of a requirement for line of sight would make them good for hiking. Thoughts?

Also, can I buy any 2 watt VHF handheld and have it programed for MURS frequencies and be legal or does it have to specifically be marketed as a MURS handheld?


(To be clear, I have no HAM licenses or anything like that. I'd much rather avoid licensing issues if at all possible.)
 
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If I remember right, you can't transmit more than 1/2 watt without a license. GMRS is pretty good and you can do up to 5 watts, but they want you to buy the license. Nobody buys it anyway and I don't think they enforce it. Jack.
 
The best thing to do is get business band gear and get it reprogrammed for MURS, or just cut a diode in a VHF Ham HT, put the channels in and go to town. [laugh]

Now the type acceptance cops are going to come down on me... but honestly... the FCC is not going to care about a couple of 7 watt or less FM handhelds on MURS freqs. They've relegated them to part 95 and its pretty obvious they don't care.

BTW there is still a line of sight requirement, of sorts, its just that a VHF HT will go further over open ground than say an FRS unit or even GMRS. If you're on the wrong side of the mountain the signal is still going to get blocked, though.

-Mike
 
If I remember right, you can't transmit more than 1/2 watt without a license. GMRS is pretty good and you can do up to 5 watts, but they want you to buy the license. Nobody buys it anyway and I don't think they enforce it. Jack.

2 watts for MURS according to what I read on the intertubez, for what that's worth. I would think that would be about as much as a handheld could do without a mega giant battery anyway. I looked at the GMRS radios too but they're UHF and so would be more sensitive to line of sight issues wouldn't they?


The best thing to do is get business band gear and get it reprogrammed for MURS...

Any recommendations on decent handhelds that won't break the bank?
 
Here are the frequencies:

151.820 MHz
151.880 MHz
151.940 MHz
154.570 MHz
154.600 MHz

There's a ton of VHF radios out there that'll operate in this range.
I wouldn't worry too much about the 2 watt restriction, most handhelds only do 5 watts max anyway and the power can be turned down if you want.
 
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Saw them, but those Dakota radios get horrible reviews

Those reviews (wherever you saw them) are contrary to my experience and the feedback I get from my customers. (I'm the murs-radio.com guy, BTW.) There was a small period of time many years ago that there were quality control issues but that is no longer the case. Besides Motorola's Motorola RDM2020 and Ritron's JMX-146D at about $200 each, these are one of the few MURS legal radios out there available new.

The radios are consumer grade but are very reliable and perform very well. I have compared them side-by-side to commercial VHF hand helds (Kenwood, Motorola, and Vertex) and range is comparable. You won't hammer a nail into a 2x4 with these like you could an older model Motorola but you also aren't paying the premium for that either.

Without trying to sound too commercial here, I did have a NES classified post offering these at a discount for NES folks and I have a few base and hand helds left if interested. They do come with the factory warranty and a 30 day money back guarantee. You can try them out yourself to see if they fit your needs.

And to anyone else, PM or email me if you are interested in those or anything else on the website. I've got a new shipment of Puxing and TYT radios coming in soon, too, that are great for ham radio use. Just let me know that you are from NES and I can offer a discount on most items. I stand behind what I sell and if you aren't happy with it you get your money back with no BS.

- Rob
 
Ended up picking up a couple Kenwood TK2100 radios from ebay for what I thought was a fairly reasonable price. They're only two channel radios but so far I've been all alone on 154.570 MHz and 154.600 MHz. No traffic from the Walmart blister pack FRS radios is a good thing.

They seem to get decent range, certainly good enough to talk from the pits to the 600 yard line, and they seem rugged.
 
Pick up a Wouxun 2m/440. It will do all the above frequencies for about $100. Even cheaper is the new Baofeng UV-5R for $65. Both are unlocked using the freely available software and work great on MARS frequencies. I wouldn't know about MURS or GMRS use. No I wouldn't, not at all.

-Tim
 
Yeasu RX-7, Freeband it, add a properly tuned antenna for what you want and transmit on just about any frequency/mode. Freebanding can be done via software as can the programming. Check out the Commander freeware. Oh yea, and the radio is submersible. Pick up a couple spare batteries and the drop-in charger.
 
Any of you guys (still) use MURS radios? I've been thinking about it for friends who aren't going to get licensed. Yeah yeah, FCC doesn't enforce, I get it. But they also look to be fairly idiot proof. Just looking at options.
 
Any of you guys (still) use MURS radios? I've been thinking about it for friends who aren't going to get licensed. Yeah yeah, FCC doesn't enforce, I get it. But they also look to be fairly idiot proof. Just looking at options.

Man, old thread. I still have the old Kenwood MURS handhelds somewhere but I haven’t used them in years. Most of the off-road groups i participate with have standardized on GMRS, and there are excellent GMRS type certified (legal) mobile and handheld radios out there that work great in the woods. I currently have a 50 watt KG-1000G in my Jeep and a few Woxoun handhelds for when I’m on foot. It’s rare that I hear anyone else and if I do there are a ton of channels to switch to. (Yes I’m the one suckers who paid the feds for a GMRS license.)

The only time I’ve even seen MURS lately is in the North Maine Woods where the commercial truckers use it. MURS is “better” in the woods in theory but in practice GMRS gear is better and does everything I need.

The exception to the above is I do use Motorola DTR series hand-helds when I want privacy.
 
Man, old thread. I still have the old Kenwood MURS handhelds somewhere but I haven’t used them in years. Most of the off-road groups i participate with have standardized on GMRS, and there are excellent GMRS type certified (legal) mobile and handheld radios out there that work great in the woods. I currently have a 50 watt KG-1000G in my Jeep and a few Woxoun handhelds for when I’m on foot. It’s rare that I hear anyone else and if I do there are a ton of channels to switch to. (Yes I’m the one suckers who paid the feds for a GMRS license.)

The only time I’ve even seen MURS lately is in the North Maine Woods where the commercial truckers use it. MURS is “better” in the woods in theory but in practice GMRS gear is better and does everything I need.

The exception to the above is I do use Motorola DTR series hand-helds when I want privacy.
GMRS would be my next choice after regular ham, but licenses and willingness/interest in learning to use them. I see MURS as radios you can just hand out and they're pretty much foolproof. Get one with no display and just channel/volume knobs and away you go. I'd likely program them with either tones or "scramble" or both, but the users would never need to know anything about it nor would they have a bunch of buttons and displays to wonder about.
 
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