Repeaters ( Ham) locations and coverage maps

[The Local Ned]

(15 August 2012, 19:52)Paul Wrote: Tried one of the Alinco range. DX something. 100k-1300Mhz. Bit fiddly and menu unfriendly.
Good for close range but better when plugged into a discone antenna although I needed a SMA adapter to Female BNC for the discone connector.
AM, NFM, WFM. No SSB, No clarifier and pure CW is hard to decode.
Battery pack didn't run out for the couple of hours I was playing with it BUT it was a battery pack.
So it has a mains charger. I don't like that in any gear.
Anything I can't jack an external power source into or use either AAA or AA rechargeables is not for me. After all no mains, a bespoke power pack, what can you do to keep it charged in the field?
Personal preference I suppose.

Thanks mate - reason I took the alinco as example was that it could possibly be easy for a novice to scan and lock their preferred bands for listening into for info/intel.

CW at least , and perhaps too - SSB , I think would be more for advanced users , I'm thinking more along the lines of the average prepper who has a CB 27Mhz but maybe wants to listen in on local PMR users or similar , or can pick up HAMS too.