Stormin Mormon wrote:
Within the last several years, FCC authorized "Family Radio
Service". I know that many stores have great success with
them. Though, they are not legal for use by business. Just
families. Still, many stores use them.

They are seriously cheap on Ebay. And can be bought with
rechargable batteries, and charge stands. So you're not
spending piles of money on batteries.

Cheaper than using cell phone minutes for everything.

I like my gadgets. And FRS walkie talkies are on my list of
neat gadgets I like to play with. Who has used them, and how
did they work?

My major experience has been picnics. From picnic base to
firewood team, they are good for chit chat. The only time
I've used them for anything real, was one time I was pincic
with a friend. His daughter wandered off. He went to look
for her, and I stayed at the base.

Used them while working on a heating and AC job. They were a
serious help, there. We could have guys in the cellar, or in
the attic, and saved a lot of running around.


There are 2 closely related flavors, FRS and GMRS, the slightly more
expensive and powerful ones. GMRS technically requires a cheap license,
but almost nobody bothers, and it does not seem to be enforced. Those
are legal for business use. Some radios swing both ways, since the
assigned frequency bands overlap.

They are cheap and useful, but not very durable, especially if you drop
them in mud or on concrete. We use real walkie talkies at work, but they
range from $750 for vanilla vhf, to ~$3k for the modern trunked digital
ones.

--
aem sends...