The Pros & Cons of Survival Walkie Talkies

Two-way radios are stronger and less expensive. But are they worth the weight in your pack?

Article by Keith McCafferty. Uploaded on April 20, 2009

Photo by Wesley Allsbrook

I hail from a generation who could do no more than shout to gain the attention of fellow sportsmen, and my first experience with two-way radios was far from encouraging. Through snowflakes I could make out my brother working down the opposite ridge less than 200 yards away, and I still couldn't raise him on the radio.

That was 15 years ago and this is now, and the power and range of two-way handhelds have steadily gone up while size and price have come down. Where I hunt, radio crackle is becoming as common as the jackhammer pounding of sapsuckers and three-toed woodpeckers. Conversations with several believers-including one hunter who became hypothermic in Colorado's Weminuche Wilderness but used his radio to talk himself out of the jam and join up with his brother-convinced me to take a second look. Or, more accurately, a second listen.

Today's radios have tons of options, like interference elimination, weather alerts, and so forth. None are crucial. An emergency button, which transmits an SOS signal and permits hands-free communication, is a good safety feature. Make sure to buy a set that operates on GMRS bands (1 to 5 watt), as well as the less powerful FRS bands (1⁄2 watt). To use the more potent channels, you're required to buy a five-year license ($75) through the FCC, an unenforceable regulation and one I'll bet no more than one in 100 radioheads obeys. Still, what would your mother tell you to do?

After a season of tuning in, which included several extended backpack elk hunts in Montana's Gravelly Range, I've reached a few conclusions.

The Bad News

The advertised transmission range ("up to 20 miles") on the three-pack of Motorola Talkabouts my hunting buddies and I used seemed about as far-fetched as Mitt Romney's claims of being your brother sportsman, because even the fine print, which fessed up to no more than 2 miles in broken country, proved optimistic. The fact is that when you're using handhelds, line of sight is everything. Put a ridge between hunters and communications go dead. Plus, the radio is another pound in the pack and, along with GPS and the locator beacon, one more electronic crutch that hunters can lean on to substitute for the sound legs of basic survival and navigational skills. Confidence should reside in your head, not be placed in satellites and airwaves.

The Good News

As long as my partners and I hunted the same basin, communications were adequately clear out to about 2 miles. By staying in touch, we knew one another's last locations should someone have failed to return to camp. Memorably, the radios came in handy the evening my nephew, Brandon, downed a 5-point bull and didn't make it to our backpack camp until midnight. If he hadn't reported the situation, I'd have been up feeding the fire and feeling pretty darned worried.

Which raises a point: By law, hunters aren't allowed to use radios to discuss strategy-not even to report the location of game. Were we on thin (legal) ice by discussing a kill? I don't know. What I do know is that using technology to gain an edge on game is a moral issue, regulations notwithstanding, and that overuse of radios can be just as bad as overreliance. I've hunted with men who talked the day away with radio earphones tucked in their aural canals. This begs the question: Do we come to the mountains to tune in to the sounds of nature, or to plug our ears and tune nature out? I'd rather hear birdsong than static when I hunt. But it's better to play it safe than leave communications behind when you take the fork of no return.

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from Clay Cooper wrote 25 weeks 3 days ago

Keith McCafferty good article and subject to talk about 2 way communications.

Through snowflakes I could make out my brother working down the opposite ridge less than 200 yards away, and I still couldn't raise him on the radio.

Answer: Most probable cause is called TROPOSHPERIC DUCTING or BENDING. Picture this, as you enter a lake and dive down, you notice a few feet down a dramatic change in temperature and now imagine the atmosphere around you being the same, a cold layer and a warmer layer above or in reverse. As light is reflected by heat and cold waves in the air, so does your radio transmission being reflected by the deference in air temperature.

At Eielson AFB, we can see the maintenance truck on the other end of the flight line. Even with 50 watt radio’s we still could not raise them due to TROPOSHPERIC DUCTING. We had to setup a repeater on the other end to talk to our flight line maintenance.

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from Clay Cooper wrote 25 weeks 3 days ago

About troposhperic ducting, my hunting buddy and I were on relatively on flat terrain hunting rabbits. It was minus 37 degrees and I knew the truck could be seen but it looked like a shimmering lake ahead. As I bent down it was like looking into a deferent dimension. Now I could see the truck but the truck and everything under that shimmering lake was upside down!

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from 268bull wrote 25 weeks 3 days ago

I've hunted 3 season's now carrying two-way's in my pack. I must admit that they are growing on me. It's my camp so I pretty much have written the rules. Don't call me every half hour wanting to know what I'm seeing. We can talk about that back in camp. Where we hunt is isolated and we have to ourselves. A rifle shot is either my hunting partner or me. Then we talk. We pre-arrange times to call and stick to them. My last bull was late in the day and I'm glad to have had the radio's to direct him to me with the meat/saw packs. Without the radio's I would never have had the bull skinned,quarted,and bagged by nightfall without getting my partner to me and helping. We were able to make camp that night without a bivouac in the timber thanks to the help of the two-way.

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from buck hunter 17 wrote 25 weeks 2 days ago

man that is a really good article. i have never thought about how much a two way radio could help you if your in a situation that would normaly get every body else in a panic. i learned a lot from this artical thanks for writing it Keith McCafferty.

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from Clay Cooper wrote 25 weeks 2 days ago

How many times have you been setting there and things are starting to ripen up! You got out there in the freezing cold an hour before the butt crack of dawn and been on the stand all day and now there is only 30 minutes of daylight left and does a small buck start working around you and still waiting for that Big Buck to step out. Then all of a sudden two guys start playing Marco Polo yelling Hey I’m over here, did you see anything or start firing shots trying to locate the other group. Doesn’t that make your blood boil!!

As for using 2 ways for illegal use, the problem is very remote. I have the abilities to transmit and receive frequencies below and above the GMRS bands and FRS bands and into the Government and Ham bands and yes I do have an FCC License for those transceivers! And when you think you’re all alone on that radio, someone is listening!!!! They monitor with a oscilloscope that reads out the frequency in wide band and the instantly tune in, BUSTED!!

Having the ability to broadcast live and living colors with 50 watts and come up on Law Enforcement repeaters in case of emergency like I have in the past, I prefer my “SPOT”!