NEED GOOOOOD WALKIES ON THE PLAYA

[Mamachicken32]

4th year Burner here yet to figure out walkies that actually are consistent on the playa... Can anyone provide me links to this. Email works better…. [email protected]

I would love to invest in some quality ones so I can actually find my group when needed


Thanks

[lemur]

i think wanting to stay in contact with family radios at burning man is surely silly.

finding your group shouldnt be any problem if youre able to communicate spots to meetup and people know what time it is.. "MEET AT THE 3O'CLOCK SIDE OF THE MAN BASE AT 3PM SHARP'

everyone and their grandma wants to bring family radios to have some feeling of control or safety or whatever..



how about 1 week without a 'safety net' of being able to contact all yer pals at a moments notice?



if youre REALLY getting a hard-on about contacting all yer pals..


try CB radios man... nobody thinks of that..

if that doesnt tickle your fancy get a MURS radio set..

http://www.burningman.com/preparation/e ... playa.html

[Mamachicken32]

Agreed to your statements... and we never truly needed them often. However, when we venture on our own ways for hours or days lol it's good to be able to call people back to home for meals or whatever...

I got injured and it was helpful to alert my camp mates I made a mess of myself lol

[Bob]

Anyone who uses the term "LOL" probably needs a sat phone.

[some seeing eye]

The density of consumer radios on the playa makes them useless - they interfere with each other and the distance goes to 100 or 2 feet, including MURS. Consider texting one another via the open source text service (requires specific phones and using one of their SIM cards). Or use licensed radios, subject to BM spectrum coordination. Have to agree with commenters above, BM is about chance, not planned interaction.

[Mamachicken32]

I was not asking for a bombardment of jests in such a simple question. I appreciate honestly non-the-less. Sorry my use of lol was not accepted by the BM gods apparently. As I agree with the whole chance thing and it is fun to just enjoy your own journey, there are times as far as my personal health issues go, to have some form of ability to get in touch with someone in my group. I am by no means disabled and should not go to the burn, but would feel comfortable having some sort of device. If there is no device rendered usable or sensible on the playa I can live without it. It's not a big deal I just figured I would ask. I was not aware of the texting feature as you listed above in regards to using BM SIM cards, but would be interested in knowing more about it. Possibly using an old cell. I generally do not even turn my cell on because the outside world beyond the playa is not of my concern that week.


Thanks for the info

[Nipple]

http://papalegba2011.wikispaces.com/FAQ

[phil]

I'm not sure what all the anti-communications is about. shrug -- to each her own.

Louise and I carry radios, and have for years. We use GMRS (we're licensed, though) during the early part of the event, but eventually FRS users overwhelm the available channels, and it gets close to unusable. We don't hear many people on MURS, but we haven't found radios that are cheap enough to buy a pair of. We have some spread spectrum radios, but we don't like them -- cheap crap, I'm sorry to say. We haven't tried handheld CB radios. We are licensed hams, so that's our fall-back. You can now get cheap crap amateur radios for around $50. I have a review of them (Baofeng radios) on YouTube here:

They're only 2 watts, but 2 watts is what we use on GMRS and that covers the playa. You do have to have your amateur license to use one, so if you don't want a license, you're pretty much stuck with FRS or MURS.

The issues with radio are the playa, the playa, and the playa. The powder gums up whatever moves in the radio: buttons, knobs, and such. The static electricity can fry the innards and cause some problems which may require removing the battery and waiting a few seconds to let the charge dissipate. The sun wreaks havoc on the display. My suggestion is to buy a handful of cheap FRS radios and have back ups when one fails.

The people who never wear watches make me laugh -- they're the ones constantly asking me, "Oh! You've got a watch! What time is it?" And the people without radios see mine, assume I'm a ranger, and ask me if I can call for help for them. Fortunately, I carry a MURS radio, and I _can_ call for help for them.

You can get your amateur license very easily, by the way -- your whole group can. There's a quick test that multiple choice, the answers and questions are freely available online, Morse code is not required. Download the questions and answers, memorize, take a test (there's a fee of maybe 15 or 20 dollars), and order a few Baofengs, and you'll have adequate comms on the playa and off. I highly recommend getting licensed. I review two other more better handheld amateur radios here
and here

They're more expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Good luck and have fun. There's a group of hams on the playa, and you can join their noontime net if you want to and you have a watch. :->

[Ugly Dougly]

I was not asking for a bombardment of jests in such a simple question.

Welcome to eplaya. It's how we roll.

The reality is that any communication device that you bring will also be brought by 1000's of your campmates. Not ten. Thousands. Family band radios become useless after the first few days - they are helpful during Theme Camp setup, but once the general population comes in, forget it.

Maybe CB or some kind of handheld HAM radio if you got it, but nothing that you buy off the shelf at Walmart.

[delle]

http://papalegba2011.wikispaces.com/FAQ

Awesome, Nipple. I DID NOT know that!!!! This definitely seems to be a very appealing option!!!


As for myself, I can't look at this thread without hearing Barbara Woodhouse's annoying voice shreiking "Waalkkiiiiiiesss". I figure I'm not alone here, and so thought I'd share a few alternatives to that one.... ALL of which appear to be VERY attainable on-playa!

1. Consuming beer while walking to the bar, walking home from a party, or walking towards the man.


2. A euphemistic way to express foolish misplacing or generally negligent losing a possession and is used to give the impression the article in question will indeed turn up again where it was left.

(can't even begin to count the number of times that one happened to me out there)

3. When a person or, often a small group of people go for a walk in a densley populated area. People go on walkies usually when bored. Once on walkies, the group of people often simply wlak around and do stupid things including inappropriately socialising with strangers...

(um. YES!!!)



Hope these are helpful, MamaPoulet (tho I know they were not). For really helpful, DO open Nipple's link.
Also don't let Bob get you down. It's BOB. If he didn't say something like that every now and then it would mean he'd had prozac shoved down his cusions again, and that just confuses everyone no end.

[Nipple]

Also: In re: My Link: Colon

There is a school of thought that those things don't belong out there.

(I myself design wireless phone networks for a living. Any chance to get away from cell phones, base stations, and thinking about RF propagation is a RAD time for me. I have one of their phones. I played with it. It worked... kind of. It's a neat idea, but I think for my lifestyle... not for me YMMV)

[trilobyte]

Don't take the jests personally, MamaChicken, ePlaya is a lot like having a conversation at Center Camp or any other highly populated part of the playa. At any given moment you can expect advice you weren't looking for, good-natured ribbing, and completely unrelated information. Think of it as a virtual version of what happens out there (though they've often got megaphones hehe).

I've never done radios successfully. Tried them once in my first year, then realized that (for me) it was a terrible idea. We originally thought it'd be great for campmates/friends to be able to keep in touch. 4 of us got spendy high band radios (back in 2004, not sure how they stand up with what's out there today) that had a 5 mile range and over a hundred channels. We figured, great - that's big enough for BRC and enough spectrum that we can find a channel without much chatter. Wow, were we wrong. The range on the playa worked out to be significantly less (maybe less than a mile), and we never found a channel that worked right for us. But more problematic is that we realized we didn't want to be walking around with an occasionally crackling radio. After a few days, we'd given up on the idea and I haven't looked back. Where they did work extremely well was with the trip to/from the playa. Those things worked better than expected on the open highway for coordinating stops and traffic, with a caravan of 3-4 vehicles. Worth looking into for that reason alone, if you're traveling in a group.

[Nipple]

Those things worked better than expected on the open highway for coordinating stops and traffic, with a caravan of 3-4 vehicles. Worth looking into for that reason alone, if you're traveling in a group.

Completely agreed. FRS radios were vital to our caravan on the way down and back. I wouldn't think of not using them again.

However the downside, in our case they were also used to warn, execute, and gloat over a drive by pressed-hamming.

[Bob]

FWIW I lugged an org radio (handle: BillyBob) for the site crew roughly from 1997 to 2004. Even an org radio is only as good as your trust in the fucktards with whom you're trying to communicate not to abuse the privilege. If you plan your crew's day at breakfast, update things at lunch, and have mutual trust, the radio becomes redundant, other than in an emergency scenario. Most of my radio time consisted of helping answer 10-20 (location) and suchlike queries for other crews. If you think consumer radios give you any sort of advantage wrt to your Burning Man experience, go for it. I bow to the radio geeks, and anybody who thinks they're indispensable, but lugging a fancy radio became much less engaging for me after the first couple of years. You usually know where people are going to be at any time of day, and smalltalk is just distracting to annoying. During the event, you're often unlikely to be able to hear fuckall. Texting wouldn't have done me any good during the build, I mean who the fuck wants to drop a Skilsaw to answer a text, but during the event, hell, whatever blows your skirt up.

[Token]

Garmin makes FRS/GPS combo units. You can send your GPS location with the call button.

The down side is the cost. 'Xpensive suckers.

Google yourself some Garmin Rino