Problems with a walkie-talkie

[Knotical]

Ok, so for you techie guys out there that know thing or two about two way radios I am trying to find out why some brand new ones my job just got in don't work as advertised. Basically, they are supposed to have a range of up to 5 miles, but some of my coworkers are having issues hearing each other barely a mile apart.

Is there something about the frequency that could help with this, or did we just purchase a bunch of garbage radios?

 

[JohnDB]

Yeah...You are using them inside of town.
Radio signals are highly susceptible to magnetic and frequency interference.

Any signals (that are stronger in wattage) can just about destroy your signals... Meanwhile every cell phone inside of that one mile radius is also interfering...Plus it's tower.

Back during the Viet Nam conflict the enemy would use mortars to shoot magnets into the air which would block all radio traffic and our soldiers couldn't call in for mortar or air support.

The higher the frequency the better the reception but also the more the signals will be lost on metal objects between the two radios.

 

[Knotical]

This isn't within a town, I work in an oil field. Though we do have wifi towers, and cell towers in the vicinity. So, is it just a matter of playing around with the frequencies and seeing which one works the best for the channel we want to use?

Unfortunately with the units we have that is not exactly user friendly as in order to change the frequency you have to turn it off then go through a different power-up process to get into the setup menu.

 

[JohnDB]

This isn't within a town, I work in an oil field. Though we do have wifi towers, and cell towers in the vicinity. So, is it just a matter of playing around with the frequencies and seeing which one works the best for the channel we want to use?

Unfortunately with the units we have that is not exactly user friendly as in order to change the frequency you have to turn it off then go through a different power-up process to get into the setup menu.

The cell towers are definitely going to interfere. Too many watts of power coming out of them. Those big cables going up aren't big for no reason.

 

[Knotical]

The closest cell tower is over a mile away, so really the things we have to contend with are the radio towers, and wifi towers we have in the field.

 

[tim-from-pa]

Yeah, I can reply with an answer. Welcome to phony advertising. They have been saying this about walkie-talkies since I was a kid, i.e. exaggerate the mileage. The fantastic range is under ideal conditions such as from mast-to-mast of a ship over seawater with no obstructions (maybe even outer space LOL). In fact, radio propagation (which I studied formulas until I was weary) is difficult to predict. There are ground waves, line of sight, sky waves, reflected waves, all which affect range. I assume your talkies (as most are today) are higher frequency which is more line-of-sight like cell phone (think light) so if there's an obstacle or simple hill in the way it shadows your communication. The lower frequency AM radios waves travel more along the ground. A line-of-sight and reflected wave cancel each other and even powerful stations would not go far if it was not for earth conductivity. Medium short wave radio transmission use more of the sky wave bouncing off the atmosphere. This makes local (line-of-sight or ground wave) reception strong, and then it fades out until it bounces back down far away. So you have primary reception, none further out, and then hundreds of miles away good, secondary reception. FM frequencies and higher's range is CRUDELY approximated by the forth root of the watt power and square root of the antenna height above average horizon. In short, you need 16 rimes the power to go twice the distance. And again, if you lift your antenna higher by 4 times, you will get twice the range. This works to a point where it then levels off to something called the inverse square law that predicts field intensity in free space (e.g. 100 milliwatts have 250 microvolts/meter at 5 miles so you can't go beyond that.) And this is why a 10 watt FM station may go clear 10-15 miles and 50,000 watt you have trouble after 50-60 miles. The curvature of the earth gets in the way. and higher power stations need towers to broadcast. Hope that helps but the bottom line is your walkie-talkies are normal. It's the sales pitch that is not.

 

[Edward]

I used to use those cheap job site walkie talkies. I had the same problem you're having. They had trouble transmitting from a basement to the back yard. Sometimes was ok, other times just static. Conditions mean everything. I wound up tossing mine or giving them to the kids actually, lol.

 

[Knotical]

On a somewhat related note, many of us have those flip phones with the direct connect feature built in. Is that just a glorified two-way radio, or do those actually work better?

 

[JohnDB]

On a somewhat related note, many of us have those flip phones with the direct connect feature built in. Is that just a glorified two-way radio, or do those actually work better?

They work better. Seen them in action work over miles apart.