Handheld Ham / GMRS Radio Benefits –
Community Lifeline: Handheld ham radios enable operators to become community lifelines, communicating with fellow hams and working with first responders to relay local conditions during emergencies.
Emergency Preparedness: Having a handheld ham radio at the ready ensures you can stay connected and communicate with others in the event of a power outage, natural disaster, or other crisis when traditional communication methods are disrupted.
Global Connectivity: With a handheld ham radio, you can chat with fellow hams worldwide, fostering international friendships and a sense of community.
Low-Cost, High-Quality: Compared to GMRS radios, amateur radios (including handheld ham radios) often offer better quality equipment at a lower cost.
Flexibility and Portability: Handheld ham radios are designed to be compact and lightweight, making them easy to take with you wherever you go, whether it’s to a hamfest, a remote location, or simply to your backyard.
Volunteer Opportunities: As a ham radio operator, you can participate in the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and other volunteer groups, contributing to disaster relief and community communication efforts.
Learning and Skill-Building: Operating a handheld ham radio requires developing skills in radio operation, Morse code (if desired), and technical troubleshooting, providing a fun and challenging hobby for enthusiasts.
Connect with Others: Join local ham radio clubs, attend ham-fests, and participate in online forums to connect with other hams, share knowledge, and learn from their experiences.
There are many types and models of portable ham radios available. We have selected a model that is durable, reliable, inexpensive, tested and flexible.
The model radio we prefer to sell is the Baofeng UV-5R.
Other models are available but, this is what we recommend for beginners. This is a great beginner radio based on the above criteria and, the ability to unlock the radio to receive GMRS frequencies. Remember, you must be licensed to use GMRS and HAM frequencies but, you can listen.
We will program your radio to receive all the important emergency frequencies and, the local Ham repeaters. Your radio will also be set up for all GMRS and FRS frequencies.
Programming is best done with a programming cable, a PC and CHIRP software. The radios can be programmed by hand but, it is time consuming and not very user friendly.
We can help get your radio unlocked, programmed and some basic training on how to use it for a small fee if you already have a UV-5R or similar Baofeng model. Other manufactures can possibly programed by us in house but, some radios are not easily programmable especially, off the shelf Walkie-Talkie style radios that use FRS frequencies.
Please inquire with us about other radios here.
The cost of these radios enables most people to purchase one or more at the same time because, in the event of an emergency you might want more than one radio set up to the same frequencies for ease of use and training others.
Most of the time you might be using the radio for listening to the local public frequencies and the local Ham repeaters for information. There will be other times where you might want to use the radio as a two way “walkie talkie” or, if the situation or licensing dictates on Ham/GMRS repeaters. It will also be important to listen in on the FRS frequencies for any near by chatter and the radio has a scan feature to constantly scan for radio transmissions. FRS frequencies are what most “blister pack” walkie talkie radios use. These radios can be found at most wal-marts and have a limited range of up to a mile depending on terrain. These radios cannot be programmed.
The radio we offer has 128 memory slots that are assigned to a specific frequency. If, the frequency is one of a local repeater then, CTS codes and tones will need to be programmed into the radio to listen / talk on the Ham repeaters if you are licensed.
We research your area and create customized programming for a finished product of: an immediately useable and set up radio. In other words you will have all the important stuff set up in your radio.
Please let us know ahead of time if there are any special considerations you would like us to be aware of when programming your radio.
The advantage of purchasing through us instead of just getting the radios off of Amazon would be: you have a finished product that you will find immensely more valuable than an un-programmed radio. Once again, this is not too difficult for anyone to learn but, it will take some time to get up to speed on how to program the radio and the correct programming cable. We find that many people simply prefer to have us do this for them so that they will not need to take the time to learn the process of programming and where to find the information to install into the radio.
User training is also available for large and small groups. Please feel free to request more information.