Thread: walkie talkies for hunting trip

Anyone have recommendations for something more affordable than the Garmin Rhinos for mate and I to use to keep in touch in Fiordland ballot (and any other place we find ourselves). Something not massively heavy. Cheers.

I’ve been pondering the same thing. The only function the Rino has that most others don’t (that interests me) is the transmitting of the radio’s position. I don’t require the map functions, just radio. I quite like the specs of the GME TX6160.

To be honest, a workmate has a set of cheap Chinese walkie talkies that he bought at a market in China for around $20 and they have surprisingly good range and clarity, so unless you are trying to transmit long distances, probably almost any waterproof radios would be okay.

Been using GME TX6160 for awhile and found them very good.

Honestly think that 5w radios are over rated for most applications. We use a mix of the 5w unidens and the 2w GME 677 on farm here and have not felt under gunned with the GME's tough wee radios that have taken a hiding the oldest ones we have are three seasons old and are used daily rain hail or shine, dragged through mud and shit and bounced around on dashboards etc. This is my personal one and it's three seasons old now still goes good as. Farm is spread out over about 900ha including hills and forestry and bush etc

Agree with Ryan, 5 watt not that necessary and can be hungry on battery power. 1.5 - 2 watt a better option for most applications.

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I got a few of the Baofengs from Amazon. 5 watts and programmable as well. Not very legal, but we’ve only got the public channels and a couple of private station repeaters tuned in on them. Battery life seems to be amazing on them.

Still hard to go past the 5W GME though. Tried and tested in NZ and really compact.

We transitioned away from the Uniden/GME and into amateur radio grade units like Yaesu, programmed to PRS frequencies because we found them to be much quieter, particularly as the transmit field collapsed. We found this important when stalking in on animals.

I picked up a couple cheap uniden ones in the States a few years ago and they work fine, talked the boys onto a couple deer last year.

went for the Uniden 5W option which is currently on sale at H&F. They spoke well of them. We'll see how they do.

[QUOTE=ablakebrown;1289737]went for the Uniden 5W option which is currently on sale at H&F. They spoke well of them. We'll see how they do.[/QUOTE @ablakebrown so it's been 10 months. What's your experience been?

Identify your target beyond all doubt because you never miss (right?) and I'll be missed.

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