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People of the maverick forums, I would like to save you some money. I don't know why but it might have to do with the 1.5 bottles of wine I drank this evening and the fact that I am on vacation for the next 10 days!
I swear by this, my brother and I were looking for a super cheap way to ride our dirtbikes in the San Bernardino Mountains (Big Bear) and still be able to talk. There are times you turn a corner and you might lose your riding partner and get lost. We needed something that had at least enough power to penetrate the trees for up to a mile because you know my little brother (10 years younger) can't keep up with his senior citizen brother (me, 48) and in the past has sat and waited for me to come back to him for an hour or so.
I wasn't ready to drop a ton of cash on the bike to bike from Rugged Radios with whom I have a reseller account and get the highest discount. I needed something light weight and with PTT, I also had a requirement that if I ever needed to be able to communicate with my wife while she was in our Maverick I could easily program the Two Way/Hand Held.
So before I tell you what I found let me tell you my experience with what I found.
My little bro and I (god bless him) headed out on an excursion at Cactus Flats. Now when riding in Big Bear you can get turned around so fast you wont even know it. I was on a tear and flying down a trail and I heard my brother on the two way say... I'm Down, come back! I hit my PTT and said are you ok? He said he hurt his shoulder but needed me to guide him back to the staging area. I told him I was turning around and I would be right there. I whipped my bike around figuring he was a mile or two behind me, after hauling ass back to my brother for 3 solid minutes I was like, WTF, where is he. I keyed up the PTT and asked him can you hear my bike and he said yes, you are getting close. I arrived to find my brother about 4 miles from when he first radioed me. I was shocked that he actually was able to radio me at around 4 miles in the elevated however wooded area. He ended up taking a pretty good tumble that took his hydration pack off along with his radio which is why it took him so long to radio me. When I looked at it on the map I figured I was up about 800 feet higher them him yet he still had to penetrate the trees to contact me.
Later that day we decided to put these radios to a test. He stayed at the staging area and I headed out 3N03 to the top on the mountain, we kept in contact the entire time. The total "Birds Eye" distance is a tad under 9 miles. As soon as I went over the top on the other side I lost contact at 9.1 or so miles. Which I figured for a 4 Watt hand held was quite an accomplishment.
Now on to what I found for this setup.
I started looking around and found a bunch of used two way/Hand Helds on eBay. The cheapest Kenwood I could find was 300 bucks. I then stumbled upon these radios and I thought, WTF, I will give them a whirl. After reading the reviews I figured I couldn't go wrong. You know, older brothers are always buying the younger brothers stuff so I decided to keep it cheap and simple this time. The last time I invested in him I was out 5k. Love him to death though
Here is the setup
Baofeng UV5R+ for 37.99 (you can find these cheaper if you shop)
Amazon.com: BaoFeng UV-5RE Plus(UV-5R+) Dual-Band 136-174/400-480 MHz FM Ham Two-way Radio, Improved Stronger Case, More Rich and Enhanced Features (2013 Enhanced Version): Car Electronics
I figured for SxS people they could use an external antenna for car to car.. like this one.
Amazon.com: Original Nagoya Dual Band SMA UV Antenna for baofeng UV-5R dual band antenna UV-5RA UV-5RB UV-5RC UV-5RE UT-108UV SMA-Female by Two way radio wholesaler: GPS & Navigation
Kenwood Headset with PTT for 18 bucks... (what? are you kidding me, this fits this radio and works perfectly)
New 2 Pin Motorcycle Helmet Headset for Kenwood Radio | eBay
I purchased the programming cable with software so I can program these to communicate with my Maverick setup on the channels myself and my friends use. I have saved that file and you can apply it to your radios for free, because that's the kind of guy I am.
Here is the link for the cable I purchased.
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Cable-Baofeng-UV-5R-Driver/dp/B008RZJHJU/ref=pd_bxgy_e_img_y
These are good from about 4 feet to 9 miles so you can install these for your Maverick and have PTT and passenger to driver communication as well as car to car.
For a little over 50 bucks you can have something that might help you out in a jam and allow you to talk to anyone within a mile or two at the least.
Hope this saves some of you some money and if you decide to try it out let me know and I will send you the channel list which will give you the popular channels that Rugged Radios uses, wait.. are you ready for this.... for free!!! Boom!
PS: Sorry Marty.. this was months after.
BigD
I swear by this, my brother and I were looking for a super cheap way to ride our dirtbikes in the San Bernardino Mountains (Big Bear) and still be able to talk. There are times you turn a corner and you might lose your riding partner and get lost. We needed something that had at least enough power to penetrate the trees for up to a mile because you know my little brother (10 years younger) can't keep up with his senior citizen brother (me, 48) and in the past has sat and waited for me to come back to him for an hour or so.
I wasn't ready to drop a ton of cash on the bike to bike from Rugged Radios with whom I have a reseller account and get the highest discount. I needed something light weight and with PTT, I also had a requirement that if I ever needed to be able to communicate with my wife while she was in our Maverick I could easily program the Two Way/Hand Held.
So before I tell you what I found let me tell you my experience with what I found.
My little bro and I (god bless him) headed out on an excursion at Cactus Flats. Now when riding in Big Bear you can get turned around so fast you wont even know it. I was on a tear and flying down a trail and I heard my brother on the two way say... I'm Down, come back! I hit my PTT and said are you ok? He said he hurt his shoulder but needed me to guide him back to the staging area. I told him I was turning around and I would be right there. I whipped my bike around figuring he was a mile or two behind me, after hauling ass back to my brother for 3 solid minutes I was like, WTF, where is he. I keyed up the PTT and asked him can you hear my bike and he said yes, you are getting close. I arrived to find my brother about 4 miles from when he first radioed me. I was shocked that he actually was able to radio me at around 4 miles in the elevated however wooded area. He ended up taking a pretty good tumble that took his hydration pack off along with his radio which is why it took him so long to radio me. When I looked at it on the map I figured I was up about 800 feet higher them him yet he still had to penetrate the trees to contact me.
Later that day we decided to put these radios to a test. He stayed at the staging area and I headed out 3N03 to the top on the mountain, we kept in contact the entire time. The total "Birds Eye" distance is a tad under 9 miles. As soon as I went over the top on the other side I lost contact at 9.1 or so miles. Which I figured for a 4 Watt hand held was quite an accomplishment.
Now on to what I found for this setup.
I started looking around and found a bunch of used two way/Hand Helds on eBay. The cheapest Kenwood I could find was 300 bucks. I then stumbled upon these radios and I thought, WTF, I will give them a whirl. After reading the reviews I figured I couldn't go wrong. You know, older brothers are always buying the younger brothers stuff so I decided to keep it cheap and simple this time. The last time I invested in him I was out 5k. Love him to death though
Here is the setup
Baofeng UV5R+ for 37.99 (you can find these cheaper if you shop)
Amazon.com: BaoFeng UV-5RE Plus(UV-5R+) Dual-Band 136-174/400-480 MHz FM Ham Two-way Radio, Improved Stronger Case, More Rich and Enhanced Features (2013 Enhanced Version): Car Electronics
I figured for SxS people they could use an external antenna for car to car.. like this one.
Amazon.com: Original Nagoya Dual Band SMA UV Antenna for baofeng UV-5R dual band antenna UV-5RA UV-5RB UV-5RC UV-5RE UT-108UV SMA-Female by Two way radio wholesaler: GPS & Navigation
Kenwood Headset with PTT for 18 bucks... (what? are you kidding me, this fits this radio and works perfectly)
New 2 Pin Motorcycle Helmet Headset for Kenwood Radio | eBay
I purchased the programming cable with software so I can program these to communicate with my Maverick setup on the channels myself and my friends use. I have saved that file and you can apply it to your radios for free, because that's the kind of guy I am.
Here is the link for the cable I purchased.
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Cable-Baofeng-UV-5R-Driver/dp/B008RZJHJU/ref=pd_bxgy_e_img_y
These are good from about 4 feet to 9 miles so you can install these for your Maverick and have PTT and passenger to driver communication as well as car to car.
For a little over 50 bucks you can have something that might help you out in a jam and allow you to talk to anyone within a mile or two at the least.
Hope this saves some of you some money and if you decide to try it out let me know and I will send you the channel list which will give you the popular channels that Rugged Radios uses, wait.. are you ready for this.... for free!!! Boom!
PS: Sorry Marty.. this was months after.
BigD
