Our group is hunting in a rugged area with zero cell coverage. We have tried cheaper walkie Talkies and no luck. We have canyons and need to find a way to communicate when hunting with each other in case of an accident.


Chris

A flare will work in case of an emergency. We've spent mucho dollars on Walkies with no luck at all in West Texas.

I've never had luck with walkies. I would go the satellite phone route..

Marine VHF radios with 5 watts of power work to about 15 miles here in the flatland of Illinois. Might be worth looking into. Borrow a pair and try before purchasing, you might find out it will work for you.

The canyons will block the signal coming and going. You need antenna height to look down into the canyons. You're in high end radio land. I have several ideas but they all need a tower.

Try baofeng radio's from Amazon they have worked very well for us.

The few times we have had people show up with walkie talkies the squelch was so bad I made them turn them off. One guy was so persistent about using it, I gave him the option turn it off or head for the gate. The next morning I saw him turn it on as he walked to the blind, His hunting days on our place ended right there.

Thanks for the help. I was afraid the canyons were going to be an issue. Last weekend we had a couple of members flip a jeep in a canyon driving on the road, looking at a buck, and went off the road at a bad spot and wham.... Good news no injuries, bad no way to contact for help. They walked over a mile towards camp and happen to run into me while I was at a feeder.

Firemed13 where are you using those radios?? What kind of country?

I have used them often in southern Texas, Wisconsin and Illinois. Just a side note: being a ham radio guy and working with radio for the fire department I am on, there are a lot of factors to effective range of hand held radio. Weather,terrain, solar conditions etc....
Just be aware that things can change and it's not always the radio fault.

I used to own property in Terrell County (Dryden area) and the cobras I had were borderline worthless. We were only 1 mile apart and although they did work it was hard understanding the other person. They might be good enough to work for emergencies for you guys but don't expect cell phone clarity.

Baofeng handhelds require a Ham license to be legal. Even these given the terrain you would need to setup up a repeater type system. But again you need to be licensed by the FCC.

You don't need a repeater to operate on simplex...and don't worry I won't tell anyone if you use them

careful with that if you are in far west Texas. To the OP, if it is a big issue then go sat phone. Different kind of issue when hunting out there. We used the FMRS radios, but we had to hunt in pairs and no more than a mile apart with sight lines in order to get signals. That was years ago on a 40,000 acre ranch near Dryden.

There's not a good enough VHF radio available that will go beyond line of sight.

Satellite is just about the only practical choice for "dismounted operations" in the terrain you describe.

I heard or read somewhere that even if you don't have cell phone reception for voice that text messaging would work in some cases. My BIL lives in Houston and when Rita hit we communicated thru text messages. Worth at try.

I said it earlier, you need antenna height to get into and out of the canyons.

A satellite has good height. Sometimes, it takes the good stuff to get it done.

Well, there is one more option. The Indians used smoke signals and it seemed to work until the white man came along.

Smoke grenades would actually not be a dumb idea.