Cheep UHF

I was looking at the latest Auto Barn Cattle Dog and they have Uniden UHF's for $250 sounds pretty cheep to me

Thats pretty good alright!

Thats not bad at all, Its even cheaper than fleabay....


http://www.autobarn.com.au/catalogue.php

Sure is cheap, it's only $4 dearer than Prestige sell them for! Might visit my local (one town away) Autobarn, I'll be working there this week.
Prestigecom.net.au Best Prices on UHF CB Radio, GPS Navigation and Communications, Express delivery Australia wide

Enough overtime this week so I am looking to get one of these
Prestigecom.net.au - Uniden UH400SX 4wd 6db GI Antenna Package - $258.50
But I am in 2 minds. Have already got a pair of 0.5w handhelds that work fantastic for car to car or for talking to an observer outside. What is the justification for having a more powerful unit? Emergency use perhaps? Does anybody ever call out their location on a road that has a designated UHF channel and mile markers? Log trucks / forestry do during the week but what about weekend warriors? Has anybody ever been required to call to someone greater than a couple of kilometers?
The 0.5w will receive transmissions from those using more powerful units - just cant transmit back until they are within range of its output ability (1km in a straight line?).
Having a more powerful unit though will mean I am more likely to hit a repeater on ch5 if I really do get in the poop.
So do I or dont I?

MY theory is purchase the best you can afford. It is a bit like car/home insurance you never plan on using it but just in case you have it. Re: the UHF it is better to have the better in car one 'just in case' you get the the poo one day and a hand held one is not enoungh to get the SOS out.

Iv gone up and down some monster muddy tracks where another car had to stay put till the first car radiod back saying you were safe to head on, i dont think a hand held would have worked in that situation.

We've had hand held to car mounted unit work over a 7 ks distance along the highway between Orbost and Cann River however in the trees and the hills it doesn't always work that way and it's for that reason I only ever keep a hand held for really close contact or emergencies.

Re: the UHF it is better to have the better in car one 'just in case' you get the the poo one day and a hand held one is not enoungh to get the SOS out.

Click to expand...

Just a warning for anyone reading this: do not assume that, stuck on the side of the road 750km west of Alice Springs, that your UHF radio is going to do any more than waste battery. Always consider UHF radios as "short-range devices". By short range, Consider the visible horizon as the furthest it will transmit - call it 10km if you're lucky.

If you ARE in trouble, pull out your trusty mobile phone and stand OUTSIDE. Dial 112, even if you don't have a service. The phone will try every possible carrier to connect the emergency call and (I have been told, not sure as I've not tried this) if a terrestrial connection can't be made it connects via the satellite mobile circuits.

Of course, while we were travelling in outback NSW (Mildura -> Broken Hill), we often had mobile phone service anyway.

My GME handheld has outputs of 1W on low and 5W on high and i use these units when on foot,
and also have a 5W mobile mounted in the vehicle, and have a couple of those Uniden .5W handhelds for friends who dont have radios when doing highway drives.

While I agree that UHF is primarily for short distances with the use of repeaters you can get a lot further so it pays to know if there are repeaters in the areas you travel.

Of course nothing replaces mobile or sat phones for out in the middle of nowhere but they also require some homework so you get the right one.

Despite UHF's being predominantly short distance only I do know of one area (and there is no doubt others) in Victoria where through the use of one repeater we can get communications on a standard Uniden UHF car CB over 200ks. East Side of Lakes to the west side of Warragul using the Gippsland repeater. It's a pity they aren't that reliable off all repeaters but it does prove you can get lucky.

Then again 27mhz am/ssb is getting popular again and back in the day i rembember on days with good "skip" on ssb talking to cb'rs all over the world.

yeah back in the day when you used to have to have a licence, it didn't completely stop the morons but it went a way to slowing them down. We used to use a 50 foot mast (had tv and radio on it as well) and just sit there copping people from everywhere. It was the internet of the late 70's and 80's.

Yep,
those were the days,
in lots of other ways as well.