Post TU Comms / Groups and Villages

[NorthernRaider]

RS once it gos totally tits up my hope ( intention) is to use on AL's advice a Single Side Band CB radio at the apparently to be legalised in the uk 12Watt machine. that should with the suitable antenna give me 30 miles line of sight, and at the right times of the year and atmospherics peritting give me a few hundred miles range.

Intergroup stuff for me ( and a few others apparently ) is going to be based around the 5 watt power of the Baofeng UV5 family of radios on the PMR 446 MHZ frequency which is apparently vastly superior in range transmission than 27 MHZ of the normal CB radios.

Good luck with trying to get a simple straight forward answer on kit and antennas I dont think such a thing exits.

[Highlander]

In a way, you could almost forget the radio,.. the radio is not the important piece of equipment here,.. you could get a very old CB radio of Ebay for almost nothing and have a good system

What does make the difference is not the radio, but the terrain and the antenna,.. a terrible radio will work great with a great Antenna,..so concentrate on that piece of equipment

The terrain you want to broadcast over is the other problem, mountainous area like mine needs a different kind of antenna to someone who wants to only transmit over flat country

So my simple answer is buy an old CB radio for next to nothing, and spend most of your outlay on the antenna,.. I would suggest that you talk to someone more local who knows radios and ask their advice, they will know your area better than we do

[Lightspeed]

Another take on village coms is to start broadcasting very locally on FM

Transmitters for the conventional FM broadcast radio band are widely available on the internet from China.

Such a transmitter would allow broadcasting messages that could be received by other villagers on conventional FM radios. This is one way communication only of course, but allows reception by equipment already in place in every home.

Cost of such transmitters is between £50 and £200. But these are VERY illegal to use in the UK today, with substantial fines being made against pirate radio transmitting stations.