Radio help

[notime]

I plan on buying a set of radios for fishing/kayaking and need some help. These are the walkie talkie type radios to communicate with your partner. I don't know much about the different features and what's important and what is not worth paying for. I'll be using the radios either on the water with a kayak, in the woods trout fishing, or on the beach surfcasting. I don't think there will be many times I'll be more than a mile or two from the other radio. However, if it says 2 miles, is that only in the best of conditions? Anyway, what should I be looking for? Feel free to name names.

Thanks,

Garth

[PAX]

Hi Notime,

I have been using the Motorola talkabout (model T289) for two years. Love them. I use them mostly for outdoors activities: trout trip, yak trip and ski trip. They are the basic two-way radios with some additional features I don't really use. Based on my experience there are four things you want to look for:

1) The combination of channels and codes. In a nutshell the more the better it allow you to have a channel just for you and your buddies. It may not be an issue when fishing but when you take your radios to a ski resort, channels can be pretty crowded and you may have to share the channel with other groups.

2) Weight. The new Talkabout models are much smaller than mine. The lighter/smaller the better.

3) Battery. Nothing worse than relying on your radio and it shuts off. You can carry extra batteries but some models are not as hard on the batteries as others.

4) Waterproof. I don't know if there is a waterproof model but if so I would buy it. Between myself and my freshwater fishing buddy we killed a couple of cell phones and cameras. So far radios survived but they may be next.

Another feature that can be interesting in the salt is scanning. Helps you locate fish just by listenning to other channels, but you did not hear it from me ;)

Patrick

[Wes]

The basic Motorola models I have are marginally reliable in ziplocks. I think they all have the same channels plus codes. The new "water resistant" units from Motorola seem better and I think they are abt the same money: $20-25 a pair. Don't rely on them for safety but they're great to keep a few guys in touch at night.