Two way radio's

Wayne,

Have you had a look at the communications article in this site? You will find it in the "articles" section in the blue bar at the top of the page. If you have a look at that article you should get a good overview of the different types of radio (UHF, HF etc), and then perhaps come back with some more specific questions.

Cheers,

Val

you don,t need a 2 way radio for normal travel unless you are travelling with more than 1 vehicle , for car to car talk you only need a UHF , if you are going
to travel in remote area you will need , a sat phone or HF radio
cheers mechpete

It is very helpful to have a UHF if travelling on outback roads especially in Roadtrain areas.
Nothing worse than having an angry roadtrain driver up your clacker who is waving a mic out the window and expecting you to talk to him.

Get one and set it on Chan 40 on all western and inland highways.

Dsepite the people who say they have travelled all around the country and never used one and never needed it they are probably totally ignorant of holding up others who could have talked to them and arranged a passing spot.
A UHF is the best thing we installed in our vehicle and used it constantly in the north and west.
It allows you to hear the truckies talking and hear of wide loads that you have to get off the road for (not always easy at no notice)
Also to advise faster vehicles you have seen them and to let you know when they are coming through..

A GME or Uniden are good brands. Se the article.

Depends what sort of radio and where you are going. HF and Satphones have huge ranges (3000km for HF, world wide for the satphone). Most travellers have one or both of these if they go to remote areas. UHF has a range that is line of sight, say 30km. They are ususally used for vehicle to vehicle comms. Short answer is no UHF radios are not needed.

Longer answer is that UHF can be useful. You can hear the chatter from nearby vehicles so you can watch out for them. On many smaller tracks there are blind corners with brush everywhere so you can warn others of you presence. On roads with trucks you can talk to the truckie and they will often move over to let you through. If you have a small hand held as well it can be used to help guide you through tight spots without all the yelling. On some trips you hook up with others so while you may start by your self this may not be the case for the whole trip.

UHF radios are relatively easy to use and most people get the hang of it in a few minutes. No one really cares much about the radio/call protocols as long as you leave the call up channel alone and don't use channel 5. HF requires more knowledge and the protocols are usually more rigidly followed. You can still learn enough to become proficient in a few hours. Both types usually have a lot of other features that you can learn about if you wish.

Most UHF brands are ok. GME and Uniden are both good sets.

Barrat and Codan provide HF sets and are both good and have loyal followings.

Steve

Hi Wayne

While a built in one with a good external antenna gives good coverage, a hand held will suffice to communicate with traffic near you. We have found scanning a waste of time, and stay on the highway channel 40 or what ever may be specified in that area. We have a large 40 on the front and rear of our caravan so truckies know they can easily reach us.

Essential for announcing on narrow road crests and bridges, particularly in areas used by road trains (and knowing when they are approaching). Good for talking to truckies who may want to pass you, or if you want to pass them on a wider road. Helpful to know of hazards ahead, wide loads etc. A waste of time in cities and large towns, where there is a lot of noise from signals just out of range and where most communications are useless or incomprehensible to the traveller.

We would not travel without one.

Motherhen

We have one in the ute and I have a small hand held.

It is good for Margo to keep in touch with me when I wander off fishing or photographing stuff.

Apart from that the one in the ute is nice to have when traveling with others and also on the local tracks used by logging trucks.

There are some good answers up there.

With every 4x4 we have had we've always had or put a UHF radio in.

More recently we've have a couple of normal small cars and ended up buying a couple of little Uniden hand held units which operate on a couple of AA batteries (they weren't very dear either). They are particularly useful if you're following another vehicle or driving together but separately. Off road a hand-held is useful if you're out of the car and having to guide the driver (think reversing the caravan, saves the hand signals or yelling) and that's why you might find that some people have one of each (fixed in car type and a hand held).

There are plenty of popular brands to chose from such as GME, Uniden, Icom etc
We've mainly had Uniden but I'd consider all of those three brands if I was looking to buy again.

Hi Wayne

Check out recent threads 80582, 80054 and 79948 on communications, including UHF.

Mh