2-Way Radios walkie talkie?

J

jwalk

Active member
Looking to purchase a set of radios for communicating back and forth with my crew. Want a pair that has good clean audio. we tried cheap midland ones but the clarity was horrendous. Budget around 200-250. Thanks for any replies please post your experiences.
 
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The industry standard is Motorola CP-200. They are very expensive to buy, but only about $6/ea to rent per day with a headset or hand mic.
 
edinc90 said:
The industry standard is Motorola CP-200. They are very expensive to buy, but only about $6/ea to rent per day with a headset or hand mic.
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Yeah - RENT 'em!
Most film/video rental places have them, as do some construction equipment rental houses.
Usually WAY cheaper to do multiple rentals than to buy.
 
Greg_E said:
Motorola is again another big step up in price, damn good stuff though.
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Which is why they're the industry standard. If you're in or around NYC, Gotham Sound has them for $10/day and will ship. If near LA or ATL, The Production Truck has them for $7/day.
 
The Motorola is pretty much standard in in the UK too but I also use the Baofeng UV5r VHF/UHF hand held radios with a private business radio licence which costs around £75 for five years.

This gives me the licence free band but also some licenced VHF and UHF frequencies that I can use at higher power, one other very useful feature for multicam shoots is using an old VHF radio mic transmitter as a talkback distribution system using the Baofeng as low cost receivers on 175.500 mhz.
 
GaryNattrass said:
The Motorola is pretty much standard in in the UK too but I also use the Baofeng UV5r VHF/UHF hand held radios with a private business radio licence which costs around £75 for five years.

This gives me the licence free band but also some licenced VHF and UHF frequencies that I can use at higher power, one other very useful feature for multicam shoots is using an old VHF radio mic transmitter as a talkback distribution system using the Baofeng as low cost receivers on 175.500 mhz.
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+1 this is another low cost option.
 
Baofeng UV5r VHF/UHF
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Wow. When they did away with the code requirements for HAM licenses I took the test and got a license, which I keep current.

The catch for those in the US is that this is a HAM radio and, from what I have found, does not have any modes you can use it in with out a Amateur Radio Operators license. It's not terribly hard to pas the technician class test but you do have to do it to legally use this radio in the US.

I have a handheld similar in size (wider range) that I got once I was legal. That was a few years ago and I'm sure it's better built etc but it was around $300 and it was one of the cheaper ones on the market!

So if you can get your crew all licensed or you off in the middle of nowhere (the FCC is far more concerned about folks stepping on commercial and emergency traffic that your actually using a radio) these would be a fantastic choice. Amazon had a five pack for $133!

IA calls (for stage work) were requiring folks have a FRS radio. Those are cheap (though only about the same price as the above). They are kind of problematic. They work and in a theatre they have really good coverage. I'm assuming these are the ones you don't like. You may want to look at Amazon reviews. There is a guy in the reviews section for the UV5r "Radio Prepper", probably a scary guy with a large weapons cache but he really seems to know the radio. He might be someone to ask since he seems very familiar with all of these inexpensive radios and he may be able to point you to a decent one you don't need to deal with the FCC to use.
 
In the Uk we have a private business radio for these if you wish to get allocated extra frequencies at full 5 watts but you can use the licence free frequencies at half a watt.

Yes they are HAM radio here too but you are not breaking the law unless you transmit on a HAM radio frequency.
 
Well that is because you live in a civilized country ;~)

I didn't delve to deep so maybe some of the range falls into the public sector. What you can use with out a license is pretty limited here so?
 
I have eight of these FRS radios: http://www.eartec.com/Eartec Simplex Wireless.html

I've never had any problem with finding available channels.
And since most of my cameras are remote-controlled, I have extra radios for the production crew to use.

The biggest downside of the system is that it is simplex. Only one person can transmit at a time.
The camera operators shouldn't be speaking anyway. But some directors don't like PTT.

The sonic quality of some of Eartec's headsets is dreadful. They take perfectly intelligible audio and resonate it into mush.

There are completely equivalent (and perhaps better) FRS radios on Ebay for a fraction of what Eartec gear sells for.
 
If that Eartech isn't a cheap Midland, then it must be something straight from China.

Some of the Eartech intercom headsets are actually really good for the price, cheaper than a PH-88, more comfortable than a BT-108 and sound good enough on our Clearcom analog system. But that's going off topic.
 
Tut Tut Gary. The license exempt channels also require non-detachable aerials, and non-standard centre frequencies, but these radio are rather popular on this band I note. The Baofengs in Europe just have to meet the Euro spec, which they do - so are legal on all the UK business channels, but I seem to remember that radio type approval is still needed in the US, and they have not passed this - but again, loads of people over there use them.

I actually don't like Motorola, despite having some in my hire kit. I rather like Kenwoods and Icoms - slightly brighter audio to the Motorola's more 'mellow' - but the Motorolas are very tough!
 
I keep a couple of the Baofeng radios as backups for my larger military radio. It's really amazing what they offer for such a low price point.
 
paulears said:
Tut Tut Gary. The license exempt channels also require non-detachable aerials, and non-standard centre frequencies, but these radio are rather popular on this band I note. The Baofengs in Europe just have to meet the Euro spec, which they do - so are legal on all the UK business channels, but I seem to remember that radio type approval is still needed in the US, and they have not passed this - but again, loads of people over there use them.

I actually don't like Motorola, despite having some in my hire kit. I rather like Kenwoods and Icoms - slightly brighter audio to the Motorola's more 'mellow' - but the Motorolas are very tough!
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Ha ha the number of times I worked for Arquiva and they didn't have the correct licence for their radio mics or kit!
 
Richard Crowley said:
I have eight of these FRS radios: http://www.eartec.com/Eartec Simplex Wireless.html

I've never had any problem with finding available channels.
And since most of my cameras are remote-controlled, I have extra radios for the production crew to use.

The biggest downside of the system is that it is simplex. Only one person can transmit at a time.
The camera operators shouldn't be speaking anyway. But some directors don't like PTT.

The sonic quality of some of Eartec's headsets is dreadful. They take perfectly intelligible audio and resonate it into mush.

There are completely equivalent (and perhaps better) FRS radios on Ebay for a fraction of what Eartec gear sells for.
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This looks like exactly what I need. Can you tell me which Eartec headsets have good audio quality? I need to be able to talk to my second camera operator during live events and headsets would be necessary. I don't mind that it's PTT.
 
Jaime Valles said:
This looks like exactly what I need. Can you tell me which Eartec headsets have good audio quality? I need to be able to talk to my second camera operator during live events and headsets would be necessary. I don't mind that it's PTT.
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Eartec seems to go through headset models pretty rapidly. They probably source them from some random Chinese manufacturer, whomever has a good deal when they need some more. The original ones I got were great. Similar to the "Slimline Single". But the newer ones I got (similar to the ProAudio Single) are dreadful. They are practically unintelligible. I plan on chopping off the special cord (with the PTT switch and the curly section) and connect them to some better headsets.

If I were buying today, I would at least get the headsets from a vendor who would take them back if they are awful. I don't know any other way of knowing just from looking at their photos. Note that if you are primarily talking to the other camera operator (vs. them talking to you), you could probably have them use their favorite earbuds from their phone or music player.

Since they are commodity FRS/GRMS radios, I would strongly consider comparison shopping on Ebay for something less expensive that would likely do the job just as well.
 
So after about a decade of no mishaps, we managed to break 2 of my radios on one job. So now I'm looking at some new ones. Mine were Cobras around $39 /pair. I don't mind if only one person can talk at a time. I just need something decent to communicate and about a total of 6 radios. What are some of the cheaper ones you guys have used?
 
After years of doing the walkie thing (Motorola CP200's), I'm starting to feel like I need to move to a full-duplex system as we have 9 members of camera dept. on one channel and the "steppage" can get frustrating. Traditional comm's (HME's) are notoriously expensive. I've been looking into the Unity system which leverages wifi and IOS or Android for the individual users. It's cheaper than traditional systems but not exactly inexpensive, and there are few things that I have to wrap my head around--but could be interesting.

unityintercom.com
 
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