Best Radios for Off-Roading | Chasing Dust

you know his off-roading has gotten more popular over the years there's now more options for communicating on the trail via radio than ever before so if you're interested in using your radio on your next adventure but you're not quite sure which one to buy stick around because on this episode I'm going to be talking about some of the most popular radios used in off-road in hopes of helping you decide which one is best for you all right so nobody actually talks like that anymore but a lot of people still use radio's off-road and that's what we're talking about today hey guys Matt McAdam here AKA desert Chief only on driving lines chasing dust some of you guys might already be familiar with the pit crew but if you're not the Nitto pick crew is basically a group of content creators that are running Nitto Tires and by the way they're always taking applications for Nitto pick crew so if you're running nittos and you create a lot of content I encourage you to apply there's a lot of really cool perks last week I actually got a box from pit crew that contained two radios in it these are rugged gmr2 handheld radios and as you can see they got the Nitto logo right there on the front this is a collaborated product you can't buy this anywhere else it was really stoked to get these because I love radios I'm a radio geek and that's what inspired this episode so obviously when I'm out on the trail cell phones are not reliable most of the trails that I go on I have little to no reception I can't really rely on using those to talk to anybody else radios are a must to have on all my Adventures so I have several forms of them inside my truck at all times so on this episode I'm gonna go over handheld versus hard-mounted radios and then give you some of the pros and cons of the different kinds of radios that are out there because there's a lot out there right now back in the day 30 years ago all they had was CB but nowadays there's a lot more options it can get a little confusing so let's get into it watch out 20. about 16 mile this side of Mississippi so I'm not going to get in all the technical specs of the legal mumbo jumbo because that video could be over two hours long I'm just gonna go over a top level view of some of these different kinds of radios and how they pertain to being used off-road so first up let's talk about handheld versus hard mounted radios like the one I've got in the Bronco some of the things that I absolutely love about handheld radios like this rugged radio that I've got here is that they're cost effective they're very very easy to set up there's no installation needed no antennas mounted on the exterior of the vehicle you can use them when you're spotting somebody outside the vehicle or if you're hiking to go find somebody else and you can lend them to your friends if they don't have a radio inside their vehicle now obviously there's a few drawbacks these are running on battery power which means that you have to be able to have backup batteries or a way to charge this overnight because some of my trail rides if we're transmitting on these all day long the battery can run out before the trail is even over that day so even on a single day trail sometimes I need to carry extra batteries with me and if I'm going to be staying overnight I definitely need a way to charge these up because the batteries will run out if you're using these all day long now the second drawback to these is that the antennas are very short so as you can see they're not going to be putting out a ton of power which means you're not going to get a very far range compared to one of these radios that I have hard mounted here now different radios will put out different power and different ranges but for the most part a handheld radio is not going to have the same power or range as a hard-mounted radio inside your vehicle all right so next up let's go over some of the pros and cons of all the different kinds of radios you're going to find out there for off-road use first and foremost we're going to go over CB radios then FRS then gmrs then we're going to go over Hammer amateur radios and then last but not least race radios [Music] now first up we're going to talk about CB and FRS radios now you guys are probably familiar with CB radios nowadays you don't really see CB radios out there on the trails as often as you used to and then grouped in with that I have the FRS radio which is Family Radio Service and this is kind of like an improved walkie-talkie that's the best way that I can really describe it I don't use the CB radio or an FRS radio when I'm off-roading I'm going to give you some of the pros and cons of each however in case you do want to use them on your rig first of all they're cost effective CB and FRS radios are cheap you can find them for usually under 100 bucks you can just Mount them inside your vehicle or use a handheld CB radio FRS radios are always handheld they're like walkie-talkies basically another great thing about these radios is that they're very easy to use you just turn them on you set it to the channel number and then the other person says there so that channel number and then you guys can talk there's really no setup involved there's no technicalities to it it's very easy for the average person to just turn on and start using so some of the drawbacks of CB and FRS radios is that they're not very powerful so CBD radios are mandated by the FCC to put out no more than four watts of power and FRS radios are mandated to put out no more than 500 milliwatts of power so that is going to be a pretty short range radio I would say no more than a mile reliably it's a little difficult to get anything more than that it's just going to not come through very clearly and then speaking of clarity the voice that you may hear through those speakers is not going to be as clear as some of the better radios that we're going to get into so keep that in mind sometimes the voices are muffled you just don't hear them as well as you can on some of the different frequencies that you'll hear about later on this video and then last but not least I don't really have any friends that still have a CB radio so for me and my trail rides they're pretty much useless that may be different for you so just keep that in mind if you're going to be buying a radio make sure that it's the same one that your friends got otherwise it's practically useless out there one of the most popular versions of handheld radios out there are gmrs radios like this Nitto radio from rugged gmrs which stands for General Mobile Radio Service is rated for up to 50 watts of power so that's a lot more power than an FRS radio and you can get better range out of them as well you can also get better Clarity out of these radios because of how much more power they put out so you can hear people very clearly on these radios it's really popular out there on the trails I see a lot of people having these and that's really the reason why I like carrying them in mind because if I'm going on a trail ride with people I don't really know chances are if they have a communication device inside their vehicle it's probably going to be a gmrs radio gmrs radios do have preset channels on them so they're very easy to use and set up you just click over to the channel that everybody else is on and boom you can talk to them and they can hear you as well another great feature of gmrs radios is that they give you access to radio repeaters and repeaters are basically radio systems that are mounted oftentimes on a mountain peak somewhere around you and when you use those you can actually broadcast your transmission to that repeater which will then get broadcasted over a much wider area to anybody who's listening on that repeaters Channel and that really opens you up for a much bigger range than just from one radio to another now whether you're using a handheld version of a gmrs radio or a hard-mounted mobile setup inside your vehicle there are still some drawbacks firstly they are more expensive than FRS and CB radio so keep that in mind I think it's well worth it for the features that you get out of these but they are more expensive now keep in mind if you're going to use a gmrs radio you do need an FCC license to operate this it's very easy to get you go on their website you register with the FCC you pay a 35 service fee and then that license is good for up to 10 years so it's a really easy process however you do need to do it to legally operate one of these radios most of these do have a listen only feature so that you can type in whatever frequency you want but you can't transmit on that frequency you can just listen to it that's how this rugged radio works as well if you want to transmit you have a pre-defined set of channels that you can use with other people and you just go on there like I said and then you guys can talk to each other so it's pretty easy to use but you are limited on the channels you can operate on foreign [Music] next we're going to talk about ham radio so Ham radios or amateur radios this is what I've got inside my Bronco I have a mobile ham set up inside of here and this is what I primarily use when I'm communicating out on the trails so there's a lot of really great benefits to Ham radios and then there's some barriers that we're going to get into here in a minute now most importantly Ham radios are very very powerful radios they're rated to up to 1500 watts by the FCC now no mobile setup is going to be putting out that much power however I can put up to 75 Watts out of the radio that I've got in my rig and that allows me to talk over very long distances with other people I've actually been able to communicate with somebody up to 40 miles away with the radio that's inside my Bronco to their radio with no problem and they sounded like they were just 10 feet away from me mainly due to the amount of power that I can put out of that radio and the external antenna that I've got here on the a-pillar now if you're using a handheld ham radio you can get a lot better range out of that as well they are still limited because of how much power they can put out with the battery however in terms of performance they are some of the best radios out there in the handheld or a mobile setup like the one I've got here on the Bronco now additionally Ham radios are open to any frequency you want so you can actually tune them to the exact megahertz of whatever Channel you want to go on and then you can actually use your radio on that channel there's no presets on there however you can program them on your own but you can actually dial that to whatever megahertz you want and that for me is really great because I can move from one frequency to the next pretty easily another huge benefit that we talked about earlier is your access to repeaters so I actually use ham repeaters specifically on two meter band all the time around here there are repeaters here on the mountains locally there's one out on Catalina Island and you can actually get over a range of 200 to 300 miles using a repair all that great stuff about Ham radios comes with a price and first of all they are much more expensive than gmrs or any of the other radios we've mentioned so far so keep that in mind if you're trying to get into Ham radios the cost definitely goes up secondly they also require an FCC license however it's not as easy as just going on there registering you actually have to take an exam you have to pass that exam then you get a license and a call sign that it's good for up to 10 years I got my ham radio license when I was 23 years old so mine's actually up for Renewal this year so I'm going to go back and redo the test that also means that anybody else you want to use a ham radio with like your friends out on the trail need to be ham licensed so that's another barrier for people is they don't want to go out and take that exam and then get their license to use a ham radio which is why a lot of them use the gmrs option instead now Ham radios do require a lot of knowledge and experience in using them because you want to make sure you're doing it safely and legally there are channels that are used by Emergency Operations you cannot transmit on those you have to make sure that you know which channel you're on how to get to those channels using some of the features of the radio a lot of these things require formal education or training on how to use them and that can definitely be difficult for someone who's just trying to go off-roading every other weekend foreign we're going to talk about race radios and that's probably a term you've heard before because race radios are primarily marketed towards off-roaders you can think of a race radio as somewhat of a hybrid between a gmrs radio and a ham radio but they're primarily used by off-road racing organizations and race teams some of the benefits of race radios include being able to listen in on some of the happenings around off-road Motorsports events so if you're going out to King of the Hammers or you're going out to Baja to listen or watch the race if you bring a race radio along with you the chances are some of those teams are going to be on there or the organization as a whole is going to be using that channel so you can kind of follow along or listen in from wherever you're watching the race they're pretty easy to use you just turn them on and tune to whatever Channel That's predetermined on there like Baja pits or mag 7 or Checkers or weatherman and it'll usually hear some stuff going on around the race now for me one of the biggest drawbacks of using a race radio and why I don't actually use one in my rig is because oftentimes when I go out places there's a lot of people using race radios and that means there's a lot of chatter on whatever Channel I'm using that day and that can make it really hard to communicate with your friends if you're listening to somebody else's conversation the whole time as well narrowed down the different types of radios that are out there and available to you so that you can make a better decision when it comes time to buying a radio for you and your adventures I do want to remind you guys that the FCC has the final word on anything radio so just make sure you do your research and you guys know the laws and you know all the regulations and make sure that you're operating safely out there but that's going to wrap things up for this episode you guys thanks for watching and be sure you like comment and subscribe to driving line and once again this has been your host Matt McAdam AKA desert Chief only on driving lines chasing dust and as always I'll catch you on the next one thanks for watching driving line if you guys like this video consider subscribing to our channel so you'll never miss any of the content we create here whether you're into trucks Jeeps Imports domestic vehicles or anything in between we are here to fuel your passion so hit that subscribe button and we'll see you guys next time

Channel: Driving Line

Views: 37,985

Keywords: cb radio, overlanding communications, ham radio, overlanding radio, frs radio, gmrs radio, rugged radios, best radio for overlanding, amateur radio, overland communication, cb vs ham, walkie talkie, cb radio talk, off road communications

Id: C_W1xARSYKc

Length: 12min 11sec (731 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2023