Lower Mainland Airsoft Group Forum

What is the best radio setup to go with or does any GMRS/FRS work? Is there better ear pieces than others.

Well you just entered a rabbit hole. I would buy a simple radio (Motorola,Cobra,Puxing) and then figure out your PTT(push to talk) and ear piece & mic situation. Just be warned the airsoft units are all crap especially if your continuously weaving them in & out of web gear and the real tactical headsets are very very expensive. It's personal preference as much as your choice of primary gun.

See also the Airsoft Information section..... in the header.....
http://www.lowermainlandairsoft.ca/info

There's a section for radios, among other things. Perhaps we can focus this one more on a particular aspect of a communications rig?

Read much, question strategically. Further, several of us have detailed interest in communications. Claymore, lupo, and myself, for example.

So let just start with the radio.....this a good option?

http://www.costco.ca/Motorola®-MD320CR-GMRS-Two-way-Radio.product.10368813.html

It should be more than enough. I had Cobras with 14km range and works fine.

I personally have a Puxing 888 and have a Baofeng UV-5R on the way (mainly cause I wanted to see which one I'd prefer and keep a spare for bringing a friend to games). These are 4W UHF radios so their range is huge, much more than needed for the fields we play on, but I like to spend money.

For headsets I tried a throat mic but found unless I was basically strangling myself with it no one could hear me (even got nick named "throat mic" for one game cause they couldn't hear my call sign over the radio lol). I have since bought a bowman style ztactical headset which works much much better.

Technically, you need to be aware that officially GMRS radios are limited to 2 W emitted radio power. Programmable Chinese radios like Puxing and Baofeng are not GMRS radios.

To keep them within the correct frequencies, you will need to carefully program your radios to the LMAG radio table in the Airsoft Info module of the website (see header).

jsae wrote:Technically, you need to be aware that officially GMRS radios are limited to 2 W emitted radio power. Programmable Chinese radios like Puxing and Baofeng are not GMRS radios.

To keep them within the correct frequencies, you will need to carefully program your radios to the LMAG radio table in the Airsoft Info module of the website (see header).

Yes this is completely true. Technically I should have a license from Industry Canada if I were to use either of these radios at full Wattage, sadly Industry Canada doesn't have the ability to monitor the use of these GMRS frequencies and they aren't man-dated to do so. So long as they are used on the GMRS frequencies only I expect there would be no issue since IC's biggest concern is interference with other radio frequencies that are used by law enforcement, fire dept, etc...

I just received the Baofeng yesterday and programmed it to the FRS/GMRS frequencies, I was surprised to like it more than the puxing which seems to be recommended way more than Baofeng. Once you get used to the operation of it it really is easy to use (slight learning curve first, the manual doesn't help). This one is actually 5W, the puxing is 4W.

If anyone else does get one of these radios be extremely careful with programming, setting up frequencies to anything other than the FRS/GMRS frequencies could cause interference issues for emergency services and other companies with RF signals in the area.

You can achieve your Amateur Radio Licence in either a 4 or 8 week course. It will help you understand limitations of radios as well as improve your radio use skills.

After paying the $100 for the course and test, you will have your radio licence for life. This is different from a few years ago.

I have the baofeng uv-5r. Do you have a step by step guide in setting up this unit to LMAG frequencies?