Get a Headset ...
You'll need a GMRS radio. Note GMRS radio. I did not say FRS radio. I said GMRS radio.
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For our Route 66 Drive in 2007, I knew I would need a good radio to
communicate with our fellow travelers and my experience was that
many of the cheaper FRS/GMRS radios was not good. I did some searching and I
finally settled on an
ICOM IC-F21GM UHF Transceiver. It was a bit pricy but I opted to
buy it with a headset I could wear comfortably for extended periods
of time.
Before you run out and order one, please be advised that this is a "geeky" radio and is not easy to program or use. It has no digital display and programming is done by pressing some buttons simultaneously and then pressing other buttons in various sequences while listening to beeps and tones coming from the speaker. All of the geeky stuff is in the manual but it is less than obvious to the non-geek/techy person how to do this. I have a background in electronics and I found some of the programming a little daunting. If you do choose to order one, I'll be more than happy to program the radio for you at our next drive. |
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At the time of creating this
web page. Some folks have already purchased this radio and
headset. These folks are:
Challenges: It took me a while to figure out what my problem was on the Route 66 drive. At the end of each day, my battery was dying and I went incommunicado for a while at the end of each day traveled. This did not make me happy! It turns out that I did not read the fine print when I bought the radio! The radio "out of the box" comes with an:
There were two problems We typically had dinner, had a couple of drinks and retired to our hotel room late in the evening and I would put the radio on-charge, not remembering that the charger was an OVERNIGHT charger which needed more OVERNIGHT time to charge the battery than I was giving it as I typically awoke between 5 and 6 AM to prepare for the day ahead. So here I was departing the hotel with a battery that was not fully charged and even if it was fully charged, it would not last the day. The Fix I needed to order.
The Head Set I did not like the ICOM choices of headset shown on their brochure/flyer so I sought the advice of some folks at www.rahq.com. I did like dealing with these folks and they were very helpful. They recommended a headset made by OTTO. The product is called OTTO Breeze and is available with different PTT (Push To Talk) options for the ICOM radio.
So if you decide after all this reading that you want to buy a radio and headset like mine. This is what you will need.
Places to buy.
Call me 513-942-0680 Radio tuning!The IC-F21GM has a 16 channel selector knob. It's channel numbers 1-7 DO NOT correspond with FRS channels 1-7 that one finds on a typical inexpensive Motorola, Cobra, Midland or other consumer brand FRS radio. So the first challenge was to find what channel numbers do work. It turns out that the ICOM Channels 9-15 correspond with the FRS channels 1-7.
CTCSS Tones (Security Codes / Privacy Codes)Each of the radio makers use a different name for CTCSS (Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System) which is the geeky name for
system used on FRS/GMRS radios. Read about CTCSS at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTCSS We have always selected CTCSS code 1 which is a tone of 67 Hz
It seems that code 1 is common to all the brands but as one moves up the code numbers change. We always use code 1. Folks using Cobra, Motorola, Midland and other cheaper FRS/GMRS radios tune theirs to channel 2 security code 1 and I tune my ICOM to Channel 10, CTCSS Code 1. |
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