The metal body of your car is limiting your signal. Get a MURS or VHF magnetic mount antenna for the car. You can also erect a base antenna for the house. Make sure you always purchase MURS handhelds with a removable antenna.
Ok Amigo's the Murs radios are better in open area's we all know that now,. There signal is larger than the gmrs radios signal that's one reason the signal is better when traveling in wooded areas or open area's but not that good in blindings and tunnels..2 watts is ok FRS radios can't not use external antenna's. Murs can use external antenna's ( mobile, Base or longer Ht antenna's ) Wich give them a better distance....I have use them in all possible esenarios ( here in Puerto Rico when Huracain's Irma and Maria hit the island ( Sept 2017 ) they work and did the job verry good ) .I'm a Ham Radio operator and the repeater's were out of service do to all the distrucion of the electric system and trees in the roads ( only some repeater's that sorvive we working whit solar panels or generator's and we're very low in gas ) Police, EMS and local government didint have comunicacion ( No cell phone, No internet ) and use the help of Ham's repeater's that work in there areas. Local community's use what they can ( old 23ch CB's , FRS radios, Gmrs , ham radios and Murs ) for help and comunicacion's...whit out a licence and 2 watts this was the best choice for many in this real emergency senacios, for days and weeks until help arrive 2 or 3 weeks later in some areas month's ( last remount community to have electricity took one year and some days to have it ) .. .be prepared like the boys scouts and always ready whit a emergency radio ....👍
Both the transmit antenna and receive antenna MUST be held in the same orientation for maximum range. Both vertical, both horizontal, etc. If the antenna orientation is mismatched then you are looking at a 50% reduction in signal strength. And since I just watched you turn that antenna to every possible angle except upside down. Don’t hold the radio to your ear like a cell phone. Hold it as vertical as possible, at eye level or higher. Being in a car is kinda like transmitting/receiving from inside a faraday cage. It also means your antenna is closer to the ground. Both of which can severely reduce range. Try keeping BOTH antennas vertical, at least 6’ above the ground and not inside a vehicles metal cage. You should see your range double or even triple. If you’re gonna talk from your car then at least instal a mobile antenna on the roof, which solves all 3 problems in a single step. When using on foot, I’d also highly recommend a better (longer) antenna on the radio.
Get a base station antenna for your home and a mobile magnetic antenna for the car. The higher the antennas gain, the better along with height of the base antenna.
That Midland FRS is strictly FRS only. There are no GMRS channels in it. Yes the FRS channels are the same as GMRS channels but it is not considered a GMRS radio. Since 2017, the FCC had manufacturers stop making FRS/GMRS combo radios and the previously made combo units that are 2 watts or less, and meet all the other requirements, were now considered FRS.
@@livingsurvival Yes, 23-36 is just mixed channels with pre-programmed tones that can't be changed. Just a stupid marketing gimmick just like the 38 mile range claim. They could just be honest and leave it at 22 channels and tell us how many watts it is instead of the crap they mislead customers with.
@@djsoundzentertainment42 that’s what I though. Thanks for the conversation. Feel free to join my forums. I need people like you to educate over there. Forum.living survival.tv
It was a great change which has made FRS radios actually useful! They now have a better range, and the ability for Them to communicate with GMRS radios means that on my kayaks group paddles I can hand out a bunch of FRS radios to non-licensed paddlers and GMRS radios to licensed users (mostly my family members) and keep everyone in touch, even when dispersed over a couple miles of river. Using the GMRS repeater stations I can maintain communications over a 45 mile stretch of the river. That’s one of the important pluses of GMRS that MURS can’t match! But I suspect that for most people MURS makes a lot of sense, especially as you can use external mag mount external antennas on MURS radios, which makes for a great between-vehicle option.
Since you can plug a external antenna on murs radios , you might be able to buy or fabricate a high gain yagi that could drastically improve your ERP and maybe get 10 miles or more out of them.
GMRS and FRS share the first 22 GMRS channels. FRS does not transmit on the extra eight GMRS repeater input channels only the output. If you have the FRS radios you can't use the GMRS only channels just because they don't have them.
It's also gonna be 12.5KHz on the 11.25KHz channels, so not perfect for murs. I do like the baofeng for murs though, as you can run more output power. This is handy for me because I can run 5 watts to my antenna, and my line eats about 50% of power pumped in so I can do 2 watts, 7 watts or even 10 watts EIRP with my base antenna. Can be legal (power limit wise), or not depending if it's a SHTF situation
I use MURS at this camp I go to because otherwise FRS is so overcrowded, and the camp staff also use FRS for their operations, so without MURS it would be hard to pick a clear channel. MURS being old channels out of the business band hasn't taken off like FRS has either and I am actually glad of that because of how bad people behave on the radio, it is just ridiculous at times that I actually laugh at some of their bullshit that goes on in my area and at this camp I go to, lol. I do talk on the FRS but ONLY when I am being called by a non-MURS user.
been checking these out recently my family lives near eachother and we are gonna put an antenna up on each of our houses and im gonna put one in my truck.
I ca even make my own ammo can repeater with a couple gmrs walkie talkies connected to a $30 piece of equipment..add a battery and instant portable repeater
I have Ham, GMRS, MURS and FRS radios. My Retevis RB38V MURS get more use than any of them. My son has handicaps and the RB38V is the perfect radio. No knobs to accidentally turn! The on/off and volume controls use push buttons and the channel selector is a slightly recessed rocker switch. (Put 'em on channel 4 and forget about it.) I bought stubby antennas for them and for short range use they are just fantastic.
A 5/8 wave or 1/2 wave antenna would be a better choice, available as a magnet mount and with the SMA connector attached to the coax, no adapter needed. You can get a 1/4 wave mag mount with a SMA connector already on the coax, again no adapter needed. No adapter means less stress on the radio's antenna connector!.
As the title says, "Might be best for survival." Are you kidding? Seriously? Having a radio for survival means being able to talk to others, e.g. someone coming to rescue you. The huge problem with MURS is *nobody* uses it. Further, there is no such thing as a MURS repeater. My guess would be the vast majority of MURS radios can't even receive NOAA frequencies for weather reports. If your family is looking for you and knows you have MURS, sure, but that is the *only* survival situation where you'd have a prayer, unless you're trying to survive in a Walmart. Search and Rescue doesn't use them. In general it is the WORST radio to have for survival. For simplex communications within a close group they're excellent, but that's it. NOT in a typical survival situation, in which case all they are is more dead weight to carry. A different title and focus for discussing the merits of MURS would have been much better for this video.
MURS is great for comms between your group. To communicate outside of your group ham would be a better option. The MURS radios that I have do have the ability to program the NWS weather channels.
Logging and Forestry use HF. 27.555 to 31.960, although not the entire spectrum, or rather that spread is not channelized. They will use one frequently, like only 27.555, or 27.765. However, 27.430 to 49.580 is HF business band. Some of it is channelized, like 47.440 to 49.580 or 27.430 to 27.530, and channels are stepped every 20khz.
Maybe try 900Mhz. Very few 900Mhz radios are made, and the ones that are are made by Kenwood and Motorola, and are expensive. But there is one cheap one made by Retevis. It is called the Retevis RT10. There are 900mhz repeaters around, and in one video with the RT10 a guy was able to get on a repeater that was at least 15 miles away. 900Mhz is also license free if the radio meets the requirements, and the RT10 does meet them. 900Mhz may be a band that many people forget about, but I am not sure why more companies are not making radios for 900Mhz.
The great thing about MURS is they do not need a license and you can talk to unlicensed friends. Not everyone wants to get a ham license. Also, you do not need to identify yourself. They do not replace ham radios (both my wife and I have our ham licenses), but supplements it for short range comms.
BTW, technically, you are breaking the law when you use that Wouxon radio in FRS or MURS unless it is type certified for that operation. And it can’t be certified for FRS. Don’t know about MURS. It is really worth getting your ham ticket. You will have access to much better equipment, more spectrum, higher power, repeaters, etc. With things like Echolink and Allstarlink you can talk across the world on a handheld radio. The licenses are all no-code now so with a couple evenings of study, you can increase your comm capabilities by about 100-fold.
I wouldn’t worry about it. The FCC can’t clean up 80 or 40 meters, I doubt they have time, resources, or inclination to police some guy with a HT. I’ve had a General class for years. Most conversations on amateur bands are uninteresting, to put it politely. Or, they are political crackpots and the obscene. It’s not that much different from 11 meters anymore.
@@thomaslano1910 Correct. Although technically NPRMs become policy once ratified, and end up in the CFRs. But seeing as how nobody in the federal government follows laws, policies, rules, or regulations if they don’t agree with their leftist agendas, it really doesn’t matter anyway. A few years ago we had indisputable proof that federal agencies were violating the First Amendment via corporations like [ahem…] and what happened with that? Where is the accountability? Where are the federal suits against leftist dictators in the Federal Government? So yea. Don’t let a little thing like a Federal Regulation slow you down. Let your freak flag fly. It’s on.
The metal body of your car is limiting your signal. Get a MURS or VHF magnetic mount antenna for the car. You can also erect a base antenna for the house. Make sure you always purchase MURS handhelds with a removable antenna.
Ok Amigo's the Murs radios are better in open area's we all know that now,. There signal is larger than the gmrs radios signal that's one reason the signal is better when traveling in wooded areas or open area's but not that good in blindings and tunnels..2 watts is ok FRS radios can't not use external antenna's. Murs can use external antenna's ( mobile, Base or longer Ht antenna's ) Wich give them a better distance....I have use them in all possible esenarios ( here in Puerto Rico when Huracain's Irma and Maria hit the island ( Sept 2017 ) they work and did the job verry good ) .I'm a Ham Radio operator and the repeater's were out of service do to all the distrucion of the electric system and trees in the roads ( only some repeater's that sorvive we working whit solar panels or generator's and we're very low in gas ) Police, EMS and local government didint have comunicacion ( No cell phone, No internet ) and use the help of Ham's repeater's that work in there areas. Local community's use what they can ( old 23ch CB's , FRS radios, Gmrs , ham radios and Murs ) for help and comunicacion's...whit out a licence and 2 watts this was
the best choice for many in this real emergency senacios, for days and weeks until help arrive 2 or 3 weeks later in some areas month's ( last remount community to have electricity took one year and some days to have it ) .. .be prepared like the boys scouts and always ready whit a emergency radio ....👍
If you are in hilly terrain, MURS vhf may have a better reach than frs/gmrs unless you have a gmrs repeater.
Both the transmit antenna and receive antenna MUST be held in the same orientation for maximum range. Both vertical, both horizontal, etc. If the antenna orientation is mismatched then you are looking at a 50% reduction in signal strength. And since I just watched you turn that antenna to every possible angle except upside down.
Don’t hold the radio to your ear like a cell phone. Hold it as vertical as possible, at eye level or higher. Being in a car is kinda like transmitting/receiving from inside a faraday cage. It also means your antenna is closer to the ground. Both of which can severely reduce range.
Try keeping BOTH antennas vertical, at least 6’ above the ground and not inside a vehicles metal cage. You should see your range double or even triple. If you’re gonna talk from your car then at least instal a mobile antenna on the roof, which solves all 3 problems in a single step. When using on foot, I’d also highly recommend a better (longer) antenna on the radio.
It's the law.
Get a base station antenna for your home and a mobile magnetic antenna for the car. The higher the antennas gain, the better along with height of the base antenna.
I used to have that for CB and yes it helps tremendously
That Midland FRS is strictly FRS only. There are no GMRS channels in it. Yes the FRS channels are the same as GMRS channels but it is not considered a GMRS radio. Since 2017, the FCC had manufacturers stop making FRS/GMRS combo radios and the previously made combo units that are 2 watts or less, and meet all the other requirements, were now considered FRS.
Gotcha so 1-22 are FRS and 23-36 is FRS with tones?
@@livingsurvival Yes, 23-36 is just mixed channels with pre-programmed tones that can't be changed. Just a stupid marketing gimmick just like the 38 mile range claim. They could just be honest and leave it at 22 channels and tell us how many watts it is instead of the crap they mislead customers with.
@@djsoundzentertainment42 that’s what I though. Thanks for the conversation. Feel free to join my forums. I need people like you to educate over there. Forum.living survival.tv
It was a great change which has made FRS radios actually useful! They now have a better range, and the ability for Them to communicate with GMRS radios means that on my kayaks group paddles I can hand out a bunch of FRS radios to non-licensed paddlers and GMRS radios to licensed users (mostly my family members) and keep everyone in touch, even when dispersed over a couple miles of river. Using the GMRS repeater stations I can maintain communications over a 45 mile stretch of the river. That’s one of the important pluses of GMRS that MURS can’t match! But I suspect that for most people MURS makes a lot of sense, especially as you can use external mag mount external antennas on MURS radios, which makes for a great between-vehicle option.
I'll be picking up a couple of BTech MURS-V1 for the exact reasons you've stated!🎙👍
thanks for watching!
Since you can plug a external antenna on murs radios , you might be able to buy or fabricate a high gain yagi that could drastically improve your ERP and maybe get 10 miles or more out of them.
Yes, that is exactly what you should do with a handheld when having to run low power. However it's probably not gonna be legal EIRP.
GMRS and FRS share the first 22 GMRS channels. FRS does not transmit on the extra eight GMRS repeater input channels only the output. If you have the FRS radios you can't use the GMRS only channels just because they don't have them.
Aka the Hanna Montana radio to GMRS people lol great video.
nothing beats a Baofeng UV-5R for price and versatility, they are programable and u can use MURS on them for 25 bucks
True but the UV5R is a ham radio so technically not supposed to use it on Murs frequencies. It is a very versatile little radio though
It's also gonna be 12.5KHz on the 11.25KHz channels, so not perfect for murs. I do like the baofeng for murs though, as you can run more output power. This is handy for me because I can run 5 watts to my antenna, and my line eats about 50% of power pumped in so I can do 2 watts, 7 watts or even 10 watts EIRP with my base antenna. Can be legal (power limit wise), or not depending if it's a SHTF situation
Thank you for the info Living
Thank you for your research! 🙂
I use MURS at this camp I go to because otherwise FRS is so overcrowded, and the camp staff also use FRS for their operations, so without MURS it would be hard to pick a clear channel. MURS being old channels out of the business band hasn't taken off like FRS has either and I am actually glad of that because of how bad people behave on the radio, it is just ridiculous at times that I actually laugh at some of their bullshit that goes on in my area and at this camp I go to, lol. I do talk on the FRS but ONLY when I am being called by a non-MURS user.
Since you are just camping, stop on em with a 50 watt gmrs. No more walkie talkies. (Kidding) but set tones and you will be alright
Good video. I've never really seen the advantage of MURS, but you spelled it out!
been checking these out recently my family lives near eachother and we are gonna put an antenna up on each of our houses and im gonna put one in my truck.
SSB CB offers the best range without repeaters
I prefer gmrs because it can extend the range greatly connecting to a repeater
I ca even make my own ammo can repeater with a couple gmrs walkie talkies connected to a $30 piece of equipment..add a battery and instant portable repeater
I have Ham, GMRS, MURS and FRS radios. My Retevis RB38V MURS get more use than any of them. My son has handicaps and the RB38V is the perfect radio. No knobs to accidentally turn! The on/off and volume controls use push buttons and the channel selector is a slightly recessed rocker switch. (Put 'em on channel 4 and forget about it.) I bought stubby antennas for them and for short range use they are just fantastic.
You need a base antenna at your house. I'd say at least 20ft high. That will increase the range.
That would be cool.
Loved "Roger and Me." He didn't seem to know that his Midland is two watt. Legal.
Common misconception. Attached antenna = legal. Even on GMRS.
External antenna for vehicle.
Illegal
@@MrSuzukiyamaha negative, MURS radios are permitted by FCC rule to have external antennas.
They do have them with the weather Channel in them.
I used to use a motorolla (murs) in a big factory that had the weather channel on it.
Like them, but I prefer charging in a base, is that an option?
Yes you can get models with a base. Check my link I listed all of them.
Did not hear a single reason or anything to do with survival, another radio vidio by somone who does not have a clue.
😃
Question I e been thinking about. How would Murs compare to cb ht in fm? Any thoughts?
In my opinion MURS would work better specially for a HT because a CB needs a crazy long antenna to be effective.
THATS WHY YOU NEED A 1/4 WAVE MAGNETIC MOUNT EXTERNAL ANTENNA WITH AN SMA TO BNC ADAPTER YOU WILL GET WAY BETTER RANGE
A 5/8 wave or 1/2 wave antenna would be a better choice, available as a magnet mount and with the SMA connector attached to the coax, no adapter needed.
You can get a 1/4 wave mag mount with a SMA connector already on the coax, again no adapter needed.
No adapter means less stress on the radio's antenna connector!.
baofeng has a murs only radio now..
Good to know.
As the title says, "Might be best for survival." Are you kidding? Seriously? Having a radio for survival means being able to talk to others, e.g. someone coming to rescue you. The huge problem with MURS is *nobody* uses it. Further, there is no such thing as a MURS repeater. My guess would be the vast majority of MURS radios can't even receive NOAA frequencies for weather reports. If your family is looking for you and knows you have MURS, sure, but that is the *only* survival situation where you'd have a prayer, unless you're trying to survive in a Walmart. Search and Rescue doesn't use them. In general it is the WORST radio to have for survival. For simplex communications within a close group they're excellent, but that's it. NOT in a typical survival situation, in which case all they are is more dead weight to carry. A different title and focus for discussing the merits of MURS would have been much better for this video.
MURS is great for comms between your group. To communicate outside of your group ham would be a better option.
The MURS radios that I have do have the ability to program the NWS weather channels.
Will murs channels overlap with heavy equipment or logging roads? I'm looking for a backroads safety radio, guess I'll need CB instead.
No, CB is another band entirely.
Logging and Forestry use HF. 27.555 to 31.960, although not the entire spectrum, or rather that spread is not channelized. They will use one frequently, like only 27.555, or 27.765. However, 27.430 to 49.580 is HF business band. Some of it is channelized, like 47.440 to 49.580 or 27.430 to 27.530, and channels are stepped every 20khz.
Maybe try 900Mhz. Very few 900Mhz radios are made, and the ones that are are made by Kenwood and Motorola, and are expensive. But there is one cheap one made by Retevis. It is called the Retevis RT10. There are 900mhz repeaters around, and in one video with the RT10 a guy was able to get on a repeater that was at least 15 miles away. 900Mhz is also license free if the radio meets the requirements, and the RT10 does meet them. 900Mhz may be a band that many people forget about, but I am not sure why more companies are not making radios for 900Mhz.
Get a GMRS
Sick intro
Glad you like it.
Click it ticket man.. lol just playin.
Haha. I know right.
The great thing about MURS is they do not need a license and you can talk to unlicensed friends. Not everyone wants to get a ham license. Also, you do not need to identify yourself.
They do not replace ham radios (both my wife and I have our ham licenses), but supplements it for short range comms.
BTW, technically, you are breaking the law when you use that Wouxon radio in FRS or MURS unless it is type certified for that operation. And it can’t be certified for FRS. Don’t know about MURS.
It is really worth getting your ham ticket. You will have access to much better equipment, more spectrum, higher power, repeaters, etc. With things like Echolink and Allstarlink you can talk across the world on a handheld radio. The licenses are all no-code now so with a couple evenings of study, you can increase your comm capabilities by about 100-fold.
As I said in the video.
I wouldn’t worry about it. The FCC can’t clean up 80 or 40 meters, I doubt they have time, resources, or inclination to police some guy with a HT.
I’ve had a General class for years. Most conversations on amateur bands are uninteresting, to put it politely. Or, they are political crackpots and the obscene. It’s not that much different from 11 meters anymore.
No technically you are breaking a " rule"
@@thomaslano1910 Correct. Although technically NPRMs become policy once ratified, and end up in the CFRs. But seeing as how nobody in the federal government follows laws, policies, rules, or regulations if they don’t agree with their leftist agendas, it really doesn’t matter anyway. A few years ago we had indisputable proof that federal agencies were violating the First Amendment via corporations like [ahem…] and what happened with that? Where is the accountability? Where are the federal suits against leftist dictators in the Federal Government?
So yea. Don’t let a little thing like a Federal Regulation slow you down. Let your freak flag fly. It’s on.