Good Substitute for HAM Radio

HighClouds

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2023
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Is there a good substitute for a HAM radio? Particularly curious about the Baofeng line or anything similar. Basically looking for a good radio for emergency situations. Thanks
 
A Baofang radio would be considered amateur or Ham. Still requires a license to use. Most any radio with much range, including GMRS, requires a license.
 
is there one radio that provides the most access? Seems there are several areas of communization ham/gmrs, some FAA and others are RX only) but no single radio seems to include them all.
 
is there one radio that provides the most access? Seems there are several areas of communization ham/gmrs, some FAA and others are RX only) but no single radio seems to include them all.
Access to what? Most bands that are monitored are limited to authorized users or are restricted to specific use cases. For example, marine VHF channels don’t require a license, but their use is restricted to boaters, ships and shore stations serving them. Business band doesn’t require a license, but is limited to 2W and business operations only. FRS doesn’t require a license and is open to all but limited to 2W. There just isn’t much range in a 2W radio. Most anything other than CB with more than 2W output requires a license

Radio bands have enormous differences in frequency which makes it difficult to manufacture a radio that covers all bands. The antennas for different bands are vastly different, so even if the radio covers a lot, you need a different antenna when you change bands. Multiple forms of modulation also add complexity.

There really isn’t much but CB that’s very useful without a license that doesn’t require a technical skills test.
 
You can use a ham radio in an "emergency" without a license. But it better be an emergency.
 
Is there a good substitute for a HAM radio? Particularly curious about the Baofeng line or anything similar. Basically looking for a good radio for emergency situations. Thanks
Any chance you can define "emergency situation".

Emergency situations can range from an outright catostropys (maybe like currently being in Northwest North Carolina with little to no cell service), to being so remote there is no cell service and an emergency occurs such as someone becoming lame, lost or worse.

And what would you intend to do with the communication device in different situations?

For example, we carry a Garmin iNReach device when remote traveling for contacting emergency rescue services if necessary.
 
Emergency is defined as to preventing harm to life and property. Everybody is allowed to use the HAM radio to call for help if no other means are available.
You can get and monitor a ham radio all day long without a license. The 25$ Baofeng radios on amazon are cheap and work well for what they are. They are a little tricky to hand load the frequencies into them but there are programs like "chirp" that takes the pain out of it. Get one, get familiar with it. Then study and take the general exam (not hard to pass) then you will be legal and won't have to worry about using it in any situation.
 
Emergency is defined as to preventing harm to life and property. Everybody is allowed to use the HAM radio to call for help if no other means are available.
You can get and monitor a ham radio all day long without a license. The 25$ Baofeng radios on amazon are cheap and work well for what they are. They are a little tricky to hand load the frequencies into them but there are programs like "chirp" that takes the pain out of it. Get one, get familiar with it. Then study and take the general exam (not hard to pass) then you will be legal and won't have to worry about using it in any situation.
The problem for most cases is going to be figuring out how to contact someone. What frequency do you use? You need to know that there is at least one attended radio within range set to your frequency at the instant you transmit.

There are two common calling frequencies at ~146 and 446MHz where someone will be listening all of the time, but transmitting directly from a handheld may not reach anyone monitoring. Operators do it by using a local repeater, but that requires knowledge of where repeaters are and how to setup your transmitter to access them.
 
In addition to the Garmin inReach mentioned above, some cell phones have satellite capability for emergencies:
  • iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 Series (I'm sure the newly released iPhone 16, too)(feature called Emergency SOS via satellite)
  • Google Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro (I assume the Pixel 9s just introduced also have it now)
  • Huawei Mate 60 Series
It would seem to me that, including the inReach, these would be much better options than an extra radio possibly requiring a license.

Edit/PS: several articles point to the possibility that flagship Samsung phones like the last two iterations of the Galaxy S-series will have two-way satellite communications enabled with Android 15 and One UI 7. Users will have to make Google Messages their default messaging app. This is still a "work in progress" though.

Rob
 
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There are two common calling frequencies at ~146 and 446MHz where someone will be listening all of the time, but transmitting directly from a handheld may not reach anyone monitoring.

I have played with my Baofang UV5R on 2m simplex and have found the max range with the supplied factory antenna was approximately 1/2 mile. I did try an after-market antenna that provided some gain increasing the range to 1 mile. I think you will agree this is certainly not a radio for emergency use in simplex mode unless very short range coverage is needed.
 

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