You need a license? :0 please elaborate..

PMR legal power is Half a watt, 500mw, these are way overpowered at 4w to use legally on PMR

You could (to stay legal) get a UK Simple License, costs £75 for 5 years and program the radios to only use those frequencies,, (of course you need to make sure the end users stick to those frequencies).

​I was only doing 140mph officer but the speed decreases really fast over distance.

​I defently don't need these but thinking of buying

Not really

​Regulations vary by country...

I wouldn't risk it, not unless you fancy catching licd and flees from a UAE jail cell.

care to show when the last person was fined for using these freq without a license

​These problems don't exist under Linux at all.

IIRC chirp provides a livecd/USB you can boot off.

​No, they can be setup from the menu, which with the keypad isn't so bad. Some units don't have a keypad and it helps, some don't even have a screen which do need the cable.

Never seen these before, never considered getting any, didn't need in the slightest for any reason but now ever so slightly gutted that the they have gone.

I guess with the right equipment you can talk to people many many miles away. Not sure if there are many users no a days with invention of the mobile phone. I will keep one and sell the other, they have fm radio built in so be usefull for holidays at the very least

We use them for general talk when running small events, it means we know we have good operational coverage over the event, so as examples the car park can talk to the front gate and stop more cars coming in when we are full. The various areas can call for more staff when they get rushes, to call finance when we need more change (or need money taken away) as well as general operational stuff.

We could use mobiles but not everyone always has coverage, and its always 1:1, whereas with two way radio a call for help is heard by all radios. Radios are also easier to manage in the sense that if someone changes or goes for a break they can pass the radio on, no-one would pass their own phone on, so we can always get to talk to a certain place.



HAM and CB are more like cousins, CB is license exempt as its low power / low range, Ham isn't

CB has defined frequencies in the 27Mhz range and a max of 4W power is allowed in law (I know it can be boosted, but that becomes outside the law). The equipment has to be bought as certified and cannot be modified in anyway.

Ham radio users have a much wider range of frequencies they can use. Depending on your license level you can even make your own radio transmitters and can transmit up to 400W.


400W on the wrong frequency could block out other transmissions, while as I mentioned earlier the emergency services are mainly digital and you can't overhear there conversation, however if you were to transmit on the emergency services frequencies at 400W you would swamp the 25W airwave radios around you. It would be like trying to listen to someone a whispering if someone else is shouting in your other ear.

The rules are in place to give everyone a fair use of the radio spectrum, and try and stop too much interference. They also give bands to various groups which helps find each other, if you had to talk to someone and didn't have an idea where in the frequency band they may be you may never find them...