Thread: School me on walkie talkies

Keen to learn more about these. We want a couple to use for when the Mrs joins me dark and early on the farm and so the kids can let us know when they are awake. From the cowshed to the house is 700m odd, a small stand of trees, a hedge or a concrete sided silage bunker obscuring some or all line of sight. My tire kicking so far makes me think 5 watt handheld units might be the way to go because then they will be powerful enough to reach home if we do disappear down the back of the farm. Bonus points for keypad lock so the kids can't talk to other channels too I suppose. Any brand in particular stand out, familiar with names like GME and Uniden but seeing Baofeng cropping up in searches too, are they junk?

Yip 5W GME ones work great with plenty of range, we have had them pick up the other unit to at least 5km, line of sight.
These work way better than my Garmin Rihno 5W

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GME or Uniden are fine. Get the rugged version ones (magnesium chassis, not the plastic variety). They are more expensive, but are pretty bulletproof. Being for use on the farm you'll claim the gst back on them, so that knocks the price down a bit. We had a farm worker lose one by a water trough, and it was found 2 months later. Been stood on and shat on. Washed off and it was good as gold!

The baofeng are cheap and cheerful, and do a million more things you do not need them for. Far too many buttons for kids to play with!

But as they can do the vhf freqs, you can get 15-20km line of sight out of them in the hills with a decent telescoping antennae. Something the others will struggle to do

You won't need 5w, we have a mixture of 5w Uniden and 2w GME here on the farm, total area is about 900ha I cluding forestry and bush and half the farm is flat with the other half rolling to steep foothills leading up into the blue mountains, about 5km in any direction from end to end and never had a problem with the 2w ones

Thanks for all the info. Looks like I'll be stalking trademe and just grabbing the first reasonably priced thing I see.

rechargable with a base,preferably 2 bases would seem to be ideal...that way the ywill be sitting in known place,one in kitchen,one in shed by platform etc....so will hear them when they go off....and another unit for when down the farm.... pain in arse when someone close by uses same channel... and battery models will go flat at just the wrong time,so carry spares.

Originally Posted by XR500

GME or Uniden are fine. Get the rugged version ones (magnesium chassis, not the plastic variety). They are more expensive, but are pretty bulletproof. Being for use on the farm you'll claim the gst back on them, so that knocks the price down a bit. We had a farm worker lose one by a water trough, and it was found 2 months later. Been stood on and shat on. Washed off and it was good as gold!

The baofeng are cheap and cheerful, and do a million more things you do not need them for. Far too many buttons for kids to play with!

But as they can do the vhf freqs, you can get 15-20km line of sight out of them in the hills with a decent telescoping antennae. Something the others will struggle to do

+1 for the GME 5W, got a pair at the beginning of the year after, robust, easy to use, good range.

The Baofeng can easily have all the control buttons locked out so the config can't be stuffed up. At that point, it's only on/off and PTT.

I scored a pair of 5W versions cheap off here and they def would do the biz in terms of what you require.

Last lot of Baofengs I got were from Amazon Baofeng store. Got here in 4 days from the states.