Thinking about Radios for your camp? Read Me First!!!

[PolePosition]

This is a pretty thorough post and I'm only going to add a few things:

900Mhz Motorola radios - 900Mhz is the ghetto of the unlicensed radio spectrum but these radios are designed with that in mind and will hop channels automatically until they find a clear channel. They're only good line of sight up to about a mile but that's pretty useful for most people. These radios are built really solid and come up used on Ebay a lot for about half the new price.

You can also buy old Push-To-Talk Nextel cell phones that work in this same range and have similar performance.

49Mhz unlicensed radios - I don't think there's anyone making anymore these but there's been quite a few made over the years. These work in the 49.8xx Mhz band and have pretty good range. This used to be a really busy spectrum but there's not much there now expect RC cars. Even cheap baby monitors have moved on to other spectrum.

Also, I think you're underselling CB radio. Sure, handheld to handheld talk will be impossible but if you have a good base station set up, it will be relatively easy to talk handheld to base station. I haven't been to BM since 2009, but CB was used a lot then.

I think that VHS Marine Band isn't totally out of the question either. Obviously you need to stay of the US Cost Guard, Government, and commercial channels, but if you stayed on 68, 69, 71, 72 and 78 you're unlikely to run into any more problems than you would talking on DOT business bands. Obviously, you would only want to do this during BM where you're hundreds of miles from civilization and not any other time.

[Captain Goddammit]

I bought four of the Baofengs, with the better antennas, handheld mics, the whole shebang.
Never fucking used them. The times I wanted to message someone I used regular cell text.
In fact, if anyone local to Seattle wants a great deal on a whole setup, four radios, chargers, extra mics and antennas, essential brand new, I've got a big plastic tub full sitting in my garage.

[BBadger]

Yeah, the cell coverage out there is remarkably good. Even my shitty T-mobile carrier worked with texts/voice, even if there wasn't data. Sometimes I had more bars on the playa than where I live the rest of the year.

On the other hand, I recall using handheld radios to communicate with other people at the other end of our mutant vehicle and the transmission was shitty. A rolled up newspaper megaphone would've probably been better.

[TT120]

I bought four of the Baofengs, with the better antennas, handheld mics, the whole shebang.
Never fucking used them. The times I wanted to message someone I used regular cell text.
In fact, if anyone local to Seattle wants a great deal on a whole setup, four radios, chargers, extra mics and antennas, essential brand new, I've got a big plastic tub full sitting in my garage.

I'm interested captain. Bring em to the burn, I'll bring cash.

[DeanisGatsby]

Thank you for this great post. Got a MURS radio for our camp.

[Skuzzy61]

I bought four of the Baofengs, with the better antennas, handheld mics, the whole shebang.
Never fucking used them. The times I wanted to message someone I used regular cell text.
In fact, if anyone local to Seattle wants a great deal on a whole setup, four radios, chargers, extra mics and antennas, essential brand new, I've got a big plastic tub full sitting in my garage.

We did the same and never used them either. The ambient noise level was so high we could not hear what was being said so we put them away. I can use them on the Cobra runs though.

[swerve_tha_unicorn]

For the record, the 888s has no native keypad or display. It is a "grab and go" radio. All programming is done via PC over a serial cable. Other Baofengs have a keypad and can be pgmd manually. The 888 lacks this capability entirely.

Shite!
Frenchy, if you want to mail them to me, I'd be happy to program and have them for you on playa. I'm assuming they program with CHIRP and the same cable for the other beofengs that I have.
I tried getting specs on the 888 them earlier but couldn't pull up the web page...

Heyooo, I just got some BF-888s and have gotten all familiar with drivers and how to use CHIRP, I'm wondering if you can send me the .CSV for the programming you did on these....

[Plugh]

[quote="swerve_tha_unicorn"]

Heyooo, I just got some BF-888s and have gotten all familiar with drivers and how to use CHIRP, I'm wondering if you can send me the .CSV for the programming you did on these....[/quote]

TLDR; I couldn't tell you what frequencies you can program in, and even if I gave you my settings, you could bring a shitstorm down on your head.

Since you have Chirp, you need to copy the configuration from your BF-888. Then you need to change the frequencies to the ones you're using. Depending on your licensing, you will probably be limited to FRS and GMRS. Your radios will not be type-accepted for those frequencies, so it's not likely anyone will complain about your over-powered radios, but realize that they will interfere with others' use of these overloaded frequencies.

The BF-888 can access a big chunk of the radio spectrum, even the frequencies used by law enforcement. If you touch their spectrum, they will have a lot of federal weight they can drop on your ass. Other frequencies that you can access are those used by the Org, medical response, etc. If you interfere with their operations, you could risk someone's life. You can do some research on fcc.gov to find out who's licensed to use which frequencies on the playa. I would be remiss in my own license (ham/GMRS) to recommend any licensed frequencies. Now that you have some background, I'll leave it to you to research the best frequencies for your operation.

[Tbolt]

Thank you for your comprehensive posting on the topic. One question: Would it make sense to get GMRS radios and allocate on channel to the Black Rock repeater ( 440.175)?

[Plugh]

[quote="Tbolt"]Thank you for your comprehensive posting on the topic. One question: Would it make sense to get GMRS radios and allocate on channel to the Black Rock repeater ( 440.175)?[/quote]
A GMRS radio won’t be able to access the BRD repeater, but the 888 can.
Since the last post, the FCC has opened up the GMRS frequencies to FRS, meaning anyone can use those 22 channel radios without a license (not that many people paid attention to that before).

[redly]

I saw this today when searching for my communication plans for 2022:
https://survival.burningman.org/surviva ... ting-help/

The big news, the org is moving away from MURS and actually published a licensed freq:

"MURS will not be monitored for emergencies in 2022, which gives participants access to all five channels for their needs."
"Program your radio to 451.9000 MHz with a CTCSS/PL tone of 91.5 to reach the Black Rock City 911 Dispatch."

MURS seemed like it was getting crowded and like other posts, it is unlicensed so reserving a channel was an awkward ask.

[some seeing eye]

That is great information!

On a related topic, participant WiFi in 2022 is the same as previous years. They are on the current generation of Ubiquiti for the dish in your camp. But because of supply chain backorders at Ubiquiti, they are supporting select legacy models. Check your camp supply chain.