Walkie Talkie advice! (for a road trip)

rossyl

Member
Messages
3,312
Hi Guys

Hope you are all doing well.

I'm planning a road trip in SW Africa in a few months time with a few friends. There'll be two cars and communication is key as there'll be limited phone signal in some parts and there's no breakdown service to speak of.

I remember those on the Centenary trip looked in to buying Walkie Talkies. Did anyone buy them?

I'm just after finding out the range they worked at. Also, how reliable they were.

Thanks very much
R
 

2b1ask1

Special case
Messages
20,221
Range is not great on the Mintex from inside the car, with the chance of getting separated in SA by large distances I’d recommend the external aerial you can get for them, a couple of them had them and it greatly improved communication distances from a round 1.5 to 5 or more miles.
 

rossyl

Member
Messages
3,312
Actually, if anyone is selling two...or would rent out two for a fee...we are going in mid September for a couple of weeks
 

rossyl

Member
Messages
3,312
Looks an awesome trip!

There's no clash. I'm back on 18th September. So if there's a rental opportunity, let me know.
 

mjheathcote

Centenary Club
Messages
9,033
There are much cheaper options than the Mitex, after I looked into them a few years ago.
Firstly the Mitex at 5W are programmed for business usage and require a licence.
The business frequencies available with a licence are either UHF or VHF. The Mitex General are UHF, and the Mitex Sport are VHF.
Generally UHF is better in urban areas, and VHF in more open areas. Hence why marine radios are VHF because of course, there are no trees, buildings etc out at sea!
So the business frequencies requiring a licence are used by security/factory warehouses.
The licence is not expensive, something like £50 for 5 years, but strictly, is for business, not personal usage, but an 'organisation' can apply for a licence.
http://static.ofcom.org.uk/static/businessradio/BusinessRadioSimpleUK.pdf

We then have PMR446 radios.
The blister packs you see.
These are licence free, but are limited to only 0.5W.
Initially 8 frequencies can be used, but very recently another further 8 frequencies have been released for usage.

So, cheaper options than Mitex?
Just look on eBay, there are loads of Chinese walkie talkies available, baofeng the most popular.
What you must understand that these radios come from China with frequencies that are neither the business frequencies or the PMR446 frequencies, and are illegal to use in the UK.
You can however, depend on model, buy a programming cable and reprogram them to what ever you want within the frequency range. They are what is better known as HAM radios.

You can therefore buy a Chinese radio for as little as £20 or less!, with an output of 5W, and re-programme them to the business or PMR446 frequencies.
Legal if programmed to business frequencies with a £50 licence, but still illegal if programmed to PMR446 frequencies as they are pumping out 5W rather than 0.5W.

For around £50 you can buy a very nice Chinese radio, and re-programme to all the Mitex General UHF and Sport VHF frequencies, PMR446 UHF frequencies, Marine band frequencies VHF etc etc.

What frequencies are allowed in Africa however? don't know.
 

rossyl

Member
Messages
3,312
Mike
Wow. Thank you so much for that detailed information. Perfect! Thanks so much
 

azapa

Member
Messages
1,300
Maplins is dead? Now I'm definitely not coming back to the UK, I loved that place.

To OP, as mentioned above, the real key to decent range is a walkie talkie that allows you to use and external antenna, ideally external 12V lighter socket, and curly mike too.

A **** 0.5W radio with an external antenna will go 2x as far as a 5W radio with the standard built in stubby antenna. I would find a local radio ham (do they still exist??) and they will happily sort you out.
 

midlifecrisis

Member
Messages
16,102
Many of us use the mitex, they had good range around 20 km on the flat as proven by locating a fellow member on a French motorway without external antennas.
They use the PMR band but with regards to the power, no one is going to have test equipment to prove that you are too powerful. The mitex has quite a narrow bandwidth (-6dB from peak) and so not interfere with neighbouring bands which OFCOM are more concerned with than power.
 

Ryandoc

Member
Messages
1,839
I’ve got 12 of the not so expensive Binatone ones, you can pick them up at Argos and the likes.

Toured the Scottish highlands 8 times now and they have always worked a treat.

Particular fun when you, as does everyone else, just use the channel it is selected to from new, channel 1 say and pick up other folk, it’s hilarious the conversations you can have lol