UHF CB AND VHF Radio's

I have sometimes thought about the idea but in the end I have decided it is probably just another thing to carry. The small handheld sets that you see in Dick Smith and the like use simplex (line of sight between two sets) communication so any hills or thick bush is going to impede communication. The sort of sets that DOC or SAR use communicate through repeaters on top of hills. DOC have put a network of these in lately for their staff to use. This gives better communication. I can't really think of many occasions when a radio would be useful. We are usually moving together as a party and if we do split up we usually take great care to know where each other is and at what point we need to rendezvous again.

Frank and I usually take these radios and find them a great idea. When he broke his leg it was excellent having them as I went off and reccied the route for him and found a campsite near the 4WD track so was able to guide him down as it was in the dark. The next day I went up the hill to get cellphone reception and was able to let him know I'd organized the medivac and that the helicopter had left to pick him up etc. We often separate to reccie routes or split up so one can travel faster or earlier than the other and use the radios to keep in touch. We've also taken them along on tramping club trips and used them 3 times as the party has split up due to differing speeds or routes and been able to keep in touch.

We used a mountain radio last time we went into the wilderness and hired it out for the months tramping. Does not take long to put up aerial or take it in once you get good and you can get the forecasts from the radio operator at 8 30 am / 12 pm?/ 4pm/7pm and they are fairly accurate! He give you a time periods sometimes like 4pm sun 5pm rain 6pm rain and he was right!! We also got him to put us through to a family member who we talked to and ordered bacon and other nice goodies! Very nice after 10 days of d-hi/porridge and crackers!

o yeah you can talk to other parties with mountain radios and there are two channels.

The second channel is a DoC channel. I used it for a medevac one time in Fiordland. You can also hire a slightly heavier radio and dial up anyone in NZ. We are extremely lucky to have this option in NZ as it's not used elsewhere I believe in this way. The downsides are the weight of the units and the length of the aerial (50m)which makes it not such a good choice for solo trampers with broken legs!