We use Motorola 2020 handheld MURS radios at work and frankly, they're terrible. I am a lift mechanic at a small ski area, and if we're on the back side of the hill, we can't talk to central dispatch which is less than 1/4 mile away. Because repeaters are not legal on MURS we end up having to relay critical information via the lift operators at the top of the hill, which yields results akin to the children's game "telephone".
Now like any radio system, a mobile radio with a real antenna would probably perform quite well, but at nearly 200 bucks a pop, the handheld aren't worth it, and you'd be better off buying a 6 pack of FRS radios at costco for 100 bucks IMO.
I think the problem there is trying to talk handheld-to-handheld. Handheld radios as a whole no doubt aren't much good for any distance unless you can see each other. MURS however
does allow you the option to put better antennas on your radios... If you were to put up a 5/8-wave VHF base antenna at the office (dispatch), I suspect that alone may be enough to allow dispatch to hear all of you on your handhelds, and for you all to hear dispatch better too (but you might still need dispatch to occasionally relay comms
between users on handhelds).
There is an actual
base station Dakota Alert MURS radio that might be perfect for your situation.
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I doubt it. HAM appeals to people who are "into" radios and communication. That's why they have so many options, adjustments and features (which also makes them complicated for a casual user.) CB appeals to people who just need to communicate with the other vehicles on the trail. Which means that MURS appeals to .....
I have no idea.
Same people as regular CB does (MURS is simply VHF CB rather than HF (27MHz) CB).
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I don't think most casual 4 wheelers or off roaders care about the lack of clarity or noise from a CB. I sure as hell don't. I only care that I can communicate with the other vehicles on the trail. When I'm not talking I just turn the squelch up until the noise goes away. Most of the time I'm listening to music.
Obviously people do care when there is so much bickering and whining on here about this noise, "weirdos", and lack of clarity & range... (often going so far as to make broad generalizations of CB units being junk not realizing the reasons
why it couldn't provide communication with the other vehicles on the trail). MURS just by it's nature takes care of the first two, and the latter is also much easier to attain due to it being FM and a full ¼-wave antenna is a mere 18" tall (which also opens the door for gain antennas that are about 45" or so long). Again, it's characteristics are almost identical to 2M ham since it's just barely up the band from 2M.
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For that matter, People who are 'chatterboxes' on radio drive me crazy anyway. I guess it's my military background but to me a radio is a tool. you get on the radio, say what you need to say, then get off. There's nothing more frustrating than being in a group of people when a couple of people want to get into a long discussion about something and you need to make a call because Joe got a flat tire or Bill took a wrong turn.
No argument here. I got a buddy who does that. I try not to encourage him by not responding unless it's something important or relevant lol. If I need to talk to someone at length about something, there are 39 other channels (CB) or 4 (MURS) for it. If others are doing it, then all you can do is barge ("break") into their conversation between their key-ups and tell them to shut the ******** ("stand by") for a moment so you can make your call.
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Actually, I guess there's one thing more frustrating and that's when someone has a hot mike and we end up listening to their stereo or their conversation with their passenger. I actually had that happen last year when I was on a trip and I ended up calling another guy on the HAM to say that someone had a hot mike on the CB (I guess that's an argument for having redundant communications systems.)
Sometimes you might catch someone's deep dark secrets that way. :Wow1: Certainly an open mic can (and often does) interfere with everyone else's ability to talk though, agreed.
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Seems to me the problem with MURS is that it's not "HAMSEXY" enough to appeal to Hams and it doesn't offer enough of an advantage over CB to get people to switch. Now, if truckers started switching to MURS en masse, then I think we would see a stampede of other users but until or unless that happens, I don't see MURS catching on.
You're probably right... Many elitist "hams" will likely still find some reason to whine about it, just because it's not "ham radio" (probably would wind up being the 2W power restriction, which is ironic since there are so many hams who take pride in so-called QRP work)
. But at the same time it would give everyone else simple comm units that are not so finicky about short antennas, don't provide for people 2000 miles away to come barreling in when you only need to talk to someone 500 feet to 5 miles away, and is easy enough to get into by just dropping into a local retailer, buying something, and then plugging it into the car and mounting it. FRS probably could've provided for this fairly well hadn't they put the arduous antenna restriction on it they did, even with it's 500mW power level.
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If anything, now that getting a Ham license is so easy, I keep waiting for manufacturers to come out with a line of budget priced, simple-to-use VHF radios to sell to those who are not so into Ham that they need all the gadgets of full-featured radios. I could see that happening before MURS.
I would not suggest holding your breath (at least for the simple-to-use part... Baofeng has already provided the former).
By design, any ham radio has to have a VFO and the user needs to be aware of what frequencies he/she should be operating on for whichever type of communication he/she is doing (simplex vs. duplex for repeaters, for example) and that their comms don't inadvertently interfere with someone (a repeater for example, by talking simplex on it's input freq). This then brings need for memory channels so that one can store all the VFO frequencies they use so they can recall them quickly (since the radio manufacturer cannot know ahead of time which freqs any particular user will choose to use). Then there's PL tones for repeater access, and so on & so forth. Programming (and knowing) all this stuff is still going to be quite daunting for many.
A channelized radio on the other hand (CB, MURS, FRS) is almost universally a plug & play design, as every operating frequency is standardized (and in many cases the mode too), and each identified by a simple reference (channel) number so any & all radios within range that are tuned to the same number will all get to hear each other. Really the only requirements beyond that are volume and squelch knobs (which some manufacturers have even found ways to do away with the squelch knob, as is often seen on FRS radios). Stuff like noise filters, private squelch tones, power level and mic gain settings, etc. are all helpful in making the experience better (which several CB, MURS, & FRS radios do offer), but they are not a necessity for the radio to provide comms (and generally they can be left off or in their default out-of-the-box settings until one becomes familiar with it).
