Off-Road Communication: GMRS vs. CB Radio

welcome back to jeeping for beginners today's topic is going to be off-road communication not everywhere you go is your cell phone going to work so the hot topic is whether or not you should be using a cb radio or gmrs today we're going to answer that question for you so stick around i think you're going to enjoy this welcome back to the channel guys once again my name is josh this is jeeping for beginners and the hot topic debate that we are talking about today is off-road communication now as i'm sure a lot of you have figured out or know our cell phones pretty much only work inside and around the metropolitan areas of this country when you get up into the mountains or out into the woods or deep into the desert your cell phone is pretty much useless so how do you communicate with either the rest of your group or with emergency services should you need to um so that leads us to the hot topic debate of whether or not we should be using a cd radio or gmrs radio there's a big difference between these radios guys and a big difference in their reliability and so on and so forth and we're not going to get deep into brands we're not going to get deep into um opinions and so on and so forth that's not the goal the goal is to explain the differences in the radio so that you can pick out the ones that works best for you now before we get too deep into it i just want to give a shout out and thank you to everybody who has supported the channel we are inches away from a thousand subscribers um if you are new to the channel please don't uh hesitate to hit that subscribe button that's 100 free that bell notification will let you know when the new videos come out and if you like the video go ahead and like the video so without further ado let's get started so the first radio we're going to talk about is going to be your cb also known as citizens band now this particular radio setup has been around for decades most commonly used with truckers and off-roaders in fact i did an internet search and found out that in 2021 the majority of the sales of cb radio are actually going to jeepers or off-roaders um not as commonly used anymore as far as general communication so the bands stay relatively open and the channel stay relatively free the cd radio um you can have in either a handheld version like i have here or you can have a hard mounted version inside of your vehicle like this either way both radios are going to accomplish the same thing now the frequency of a cv radio is actually very limited but because it's limited it's very focused okay the frequency runs and not to get technical on you guys but from 26.965 megahertz up to 27.405 megahertz so there's about a half a megahertz difference between channel 1 and channel 40 on your average cb radios the advantage of it being so specific is that when you hook up the antenna to it either on the handheld unit or on your vehicle the antenna is tuned specifically to that frequency band so there isn't as much static and as much feedback now the disadvantage to a cv radio because it is older technology and still runs off of analog signals is your range the range of a cv is anywhere from about a mile to about three miles maybe a little bit more a lot of it depends upon line of sight meaning that you got to make sure that you can see the person that you're talking to or at least the radio can see the person that you're talking to it also depends upon weather conditions solar flares so on and so forth this frequency range is very low but it is also easily disturbed by natural phenomena now most cb radios can be purchased online at pretty much any off-road store amazon walmart.com ebay pretty much anywhere that you can think of you can buy a cb radio and prices aren't that unreasonable they'll range anywhere from 50 bucks to 150 bucks depending upon the unit or the setup that you prefer to have in your vehicle cb radio is also 100 free for the user it does not require a license it doesn't require any annual fees of any kind you can simply plug it in and begin to use it the majority of your off-road community is going to have a cb radio of some sort um although a lot of us are switching over to gmrs and we are going to talk about that here in just a couple of minutes for as far as an off-road form of communication it is relatively reliable the reason being is again because the frequency band is so short and the traffic is very minimal um you can pretty much pick the channel that you want to use and be able to talk to the other parties in your group with ease and let's face it that's ultimately what you need the offer of communication for all right so now let's talk about your ham radio setups now these guys can seem very daunting right off the bat to a lot of brand new users why because there is a lot more buttons there's a lot more features um there is licensing that's required for these but there are some advantages to running the frequency bands here like i had mentioned with the cb radio your frequency is only about a half a megahertz difference between channel 1 and channel 40. with your ham radio uh or frs radio setup you have a frequency range anywhere from 1.3 megahertz all the way up to 1 240 megahertz now are you going to use the whole bandwidth absolutely not but the nice thing about having that bandwidth and your am and fm frequencies also mixed in there is for emergency services should you end up in a situation where you need to get a hold of somebody you have a much broader range of frequencies that you can broadcast at in hopes to reach another person and or emergency services now gmrs radio is probably the most common frequency band used in the off-road community now this ranges anywhere from the 460 to the 468 megahertz range um somewhere in that uh area and your channels can be narrowed down to very finite so there's hundreds of channels that are in between those two frequency ranges gmrs does require a license however do not let this scare you um as licensing for gmrs radio is super simple super easy to get regulated by the fcc it's only about 35 and the license lasts you for about 10 years using ham or gmrs radio your range can be anywhere from your two to three miles depending upon line of sight all the way up to 30 to 40 miles with direct line of sight can you hear me now yeah buddy you're coming in crystal clear other nice thing is the repeaters okay the repeaters are usually tall towers that are amplified and powered sitting on most of the mountain peaks throughout this country um where you can connect to with your radio and then once again amplify and broadcast your signal for a much broader range to kind of give you an example we were up in moab utah we were sitting at the northern entrance to canyonlands national park um and it was traffic from hell and so we were stuck there waiting for everybody to get through there they're ticketing me and my buddy were playing with the radios and we had picked up a frequency um or somebody had hopped on the gmrs repeater from all the way down in st george utah now if you look at a map and you see the difference in length from that that is a huge area to cover not something that could be done with a cb radio in the off-road community using gmrs is extremely reliable the frequency is very pointed and narrow when it comes off your antenna you can be picked up again a mile or two away crystal clear over the radius now your gmrs radios are available in handheld like this one here or they are available just like your cv as a hard mount inside the vehicle the units mounted inside the vehicles tend to have a much higher power output most of your handheld radios are going to put out anywhere from five to eight watts which does limit its range because that's about all the power that this little guy can put out um this one i think the maximum we've been able to do is about three and a half miles before it actually starts breaking up um simply again because of the amount of power now your units that you would mount inside the vehicle can range anywhere from 25 watts all the way up to 50 watts and you can get amplified antennas in order to broadcast further than that so let's talk about the cost now again a lot of people get scared of your high-end radios because they think high-end is going to cost a lot more money but truthfully this radio right here i picked this up on the internet with a battery charger an earpiece and a separate microphone all as one kit for 23. this is a bofang radio um and for 23 bucks i am definitely not disappointed in fact we actually carried multiple of these with us so that those that are traveling in a group offer that don't have any radio communications we have radios in order to hand out now the ones that you mount inside your vehicle um those i have seen range anywhere from a hundred bucks up to a thousand dollars now really depends upon the features that you want on the radio you just want to make sure that the reviews are good um and that the radio is going to put out and broadcast the way that you want it to broadcast so which one is better is cb better than ham or his hand better than cb i am not going to sit here and preach or tell you that one is better than the other especially since i actually use both in my jeep depending upon the situation that i am in but what i can say is that with your ham radio option you do have the ability to contact emergency services um to listen to weather bans you do have the ability for a much longer range connecting to repeaters and the cost variance between them is really not that much different i have been using cds in my jeep since 1996 and i have very been very familiar with them i really enjoy them and i like them and i find them to be very dependable um it wasn't until recently that a buddy talked me into trying uh gmrs and playing with it i could definitely see that there's some advantages there um and my collection for gmrs radios is growing slowly as time goes on so for the last year and a half or so um i have been using more of the gmrs frequencies that i have been on the cb radio frequencies disadvantages so in your handheld versions of these radios cb or gmrs i have actually found that the batteries in a cb radio will last for days on end easily days on end for whatever reason it just doesn't pull as much power probably because it's not broadcasting nearly as far however on my bowfang radio um under normal use on an off-road day i get about six hours out of this battery before it dies and it has to be recharged so advantage disadvantage now when it comes to the base units that are mounted in the vehicle the other disadvantage to ham over cb is the way that the antenna mounts um it requires a much larger hole a completely different mounting surface and it has to be a 100 weather tight connection in order for it to be dependable and reliable so final thought is should you go with a handheld version or should you go with a hard mounted version this is a hard question to answer because it really depends upon what you're doing if you are doing a lot of hiking um handheld definitely makes a lot more sense um if you spend most of your time in your jeep then the hard mountain makes sense um to be honest i actually carry both and the reason that i carry both is for situations like spotting i have a unit inside my jeep that i can broadcast and receive and my spotter will also have a handheld radio so that no matter how far away from the vehicle he is i can hear him clearly on the directions that he's given all right a little to the driver a little to the driver so i put it to you which one do you prefer do you prefer the cb radio or do you prefer gmrs why don't you put that down in the comments down below so that i know which one you guys are using um and which one that you prefer once again thank you so much for watching the video and supporting the efforts if you haven't done so already please subscribe to the channel and hit that little bell notification so that you can be notified of our future videos until then happy jeeping stay safe and we will see you next time

Channel: Jeeping For Beginners

Views: 10,724

Keywords: gmrs radio review, gmrs radio for beginners, CB Radio, gmrs vs cb, gmrs vs cb offroad, gmrs vs cb vs ham, gmrs vs cb distance, jeeping for beginners, off road communicatrion, ham radio, ham radio for beginners, wayalife, jeep wrangler, jeep jk, jeep jl, off road, jeep life

Id: PHSjm3MNGao

Length: 13min 29sec (809 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 28 2021