Neighborhood Emergency Response Radio?

[woodsghost]

Just a gentle but official reminder here... Part 95.561 makes it illegal to use a non-certificated radio on FRS frequencies, and 95.587 requires FRS radios to have non-removable antennas. The Baofeng (and other cheap radios of that nature) do not meet those requirements.

Not for neighborhood use, but for identifying the real problem. If more power and better radios still don't work, then there is likely a terrain feature blocking the signal. If a better antenna and/or more power fixes it then there is room to discuss equipment changes and maybe licences.

It would also be useful to find out if 1 or 2 neighbors might want to go the GMRS or ham route. It is probably not necessary that everyone has full comms capability.

But again, I'd like to know the real problem before making more guesses.

Just what I'm thinking.

EDIT:

To be clear, I assume everyone in this scenario is either legally licenced to use the radios doing the testing, or have a cell phone or something handy to receive on a test radio and report back to the licenced party.

[NT2C]

Just a gentle but official reminder here... Part 95.561 makes it illegal to use a non-certificated radio on FRS frequencies, and 95.587 requires FRS radios to have non-removable antennas. The Baofeng (and other cheap radios of that nature) do not meet those requirements.

Not for neighborhood use, but for identifying the real problem. If more power and better radios still don't work, then there is likely a terrain feature blocking the signal. If a better antenna and/or more power fixes it then there is room to discuss equipment changes and maybe licences.

It would also be useful to find out if 1 or 2 neighbors might want to go the GMRS or ham route. It is probably not necessary that everyone has full comms capability.

But again, I'd like to know the real problem before making more guesses.

Just what I'm thinking.

Aw man... It's Saturday, I didn't really want to have to put on my mod hat on Saturday, and certainly not before I've had my coffee, but you're going to make me put it on anyway, aren't you? Okay then, this is official:

Illegal is illegal and we do not discuss doing illegal things on ZS. There are zero exceptions to this policy.

Have I made myself clear?

[woodsghost]

I must have misunderstood something.

I am not wanting to advocate anything illegal.

I'll review and edit if I advocated illegal activity.

[CrossCut]

And as an update to my update...doesn't look like the geography problem can be overcome by more power. After stationing my son in the athletic field, I tried to reach him from the far end of the neighborhood, no dice. So short of setting up some kind of neighborhood repeater (not gonna happen), it looks like we don't get neighborhood-wide radio comms.

Crazy idea here but... a simple ham cross band repeater would solve the problem of that hill. All you need is good elevation on the repeater antenna, and that's easy enough to do with a telescoping mast or ladder line antenna. Getting everyone licensed is going to be the difficult part but it can be done.

Or a single part 90 license for the neighborhood as a whole? https://sites.google.com/a/mst.edu/robe ... -frequency

Non-profit use so only the $60 fee, license is valid for 10 years. Pick two itinerant business/industrial pool frequencies, one VHF and one UHF like 151.625MHz and 464.500MHz. Then, I believe, you could use any dual band part 90 radio (mobiles/HTs) and a single cross band repeater (some as inexpensive as $80) attached to a max height 6.1m antenna at one home as a base/control station. This assumes a 20ft antenna would make the difference for communicating end-to-end in your neighborhood.

I've not done this but considered it more than once. No frequency coordination required on intinerant frequencies, and by limiting power to 20 watts and a small number of licensed units in the filing it likely would get approved...?

[Commo141]

If you where to have a number of residents who have FRS radios but do not mobilize with the CERT, they could form a listening net through the neighborhood and relay messages to and from the CP. It could also be a way for information to get to the CP, also residents who are in need of help could know that they could contact help via and FRS channel. The ideal would be to have a number of stations listening on one FRS channel for distress calls and using another to talk to the team. Also remember a radio inside a house will not have the reach of one in the open.

[moab]

My vote is to try these.

https://www.buytwowayradios.com/midland ... 0-vp4.html

[SCBrian]

Would have the same limitations as the radios above. The 36mile range is marketing.
If you are on a mountain top and your friend is on a mountain top 36 miles away, and you can see each other, you can talk. If you and your friend are on opposite sides of the same mountain - no go.
FRS/GRMS is essentially line of sight. Some ham stuff as well. It might have trouble reaching the other side of town, but you can communicate with the ISS with the same gear due to line of sight.

[NT2C]

My vote is to try these.

https://www.buytwowayradios.com/midland ... 0-vp4.html

Same problem as discussed previously. FRS won't cut it and they have no GMRS license.