>>547360Radio thread? Radio thread!
Baofeng's are great radios for what they are - cheap chinese radios.
They're already pretty small, don't think you're going to find anything else decent for the money. Get the programming cable for it, the UI on them is fuckawful (Probably the worst I've used, ever). An aftermarket antenna (don't remember the model, i'm sure you can find it with some googling) is a pretty big upgrade too.
Canyons are tough with any radio, regardless of power/band/etc. When I was working with the FD, providing coverage in the canyons/foothills was (still is) a huge concern. Repeaters can blanket an area to get calls out, but getting mobiles (and especially handhelds) back to dispatch is tricky. Couple of micro-sites with directional antennas and microwave uplinks out there to extend coverage in accident-prone areas.
Program up to a MURS or FRS channel and use that on the lowest power necessary. Don't just pick a frequency and use it; do some research and play nice.
Those radios can and will fuck up legit (licensed) systems, and the FCC can and will fuck up your shit if you fuck with them.
I currently carry an FT60, but i'll be making the jump to Mototrbo/DMR in the very near future.
The FT60's been with me for about 8 years... frozen, thawed, baked, frozen again, dropped from towers, skidded across asphalt... starting to not work as well as it used to. Mototrbo stuff still falls back on conventional and P25 which is nice.
>Just listed those two Motorola SP21's for sale... 2-watt VHF/MURS. They need new batteries, otherwise excellent radios... 