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Equipment two way radios, what to get?

11K views 34 replies 21 participants last post by  bobofthenorth 
#1 ·
So I am quite tired of constantly phoning guys or giving hand signals as if I am in a WWII Russian tank.

I am thinking of adding radios to our trucks, combines, and pickups, obviously many have been doing it for decades, but we haven't needed them as our family members and previous workers were pretty good with limited instruction, but this new wave of workers have no clue about common sense, so they need constant guidance and instructions.

So my question is, I have a few of those CB radios in our trucks, but we never use them, can those be used with some of those other radios I see farmers have in the combines? Do I need to pay any sort of frequency or licensing fees? Are there any that are not compatible with each other? Are there rules i have to follow where I cannot use certain channels or use them in certain places?

Basically I don't know anything about them, I don't really know what I should be looking at buying. I just don't want to go into a shop and then upsold on some sort of not needed radio system, And being that some of you guys have been using them for years, you guys know what works and what doesn't .

Thanks!
 
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#2 ·
We had UHF radio setup put in 40years ago and at the time was probably one of the best single things to keep operation moving and know what everybody doing. Even though it not used near as much now we still keep the Midland or motorola radios in important pieces of equipment and still works fine. Not sure what it like today, but we still have our own frequency(only ones on it) and pretty sure this was not the case with VHF radios than and really not sure now. These radios not bulletproof and need tune up or antennae fix once in awhile, but still pretty handy considering they fully depreciated decades ago. You give up some range with UHF, but quality of sound was advertised to be better - still sounds better than lots of cell phones. As with most radio things your location/terrain makes difference - our base with tower on pretty much highest place on township so get pretty good reception from there.
 
#3 ·
Don't pay more then 450 a radio and antenna if you buying more then one. And I would suggest you only buy Motorola or Kenwood. We seem to have problems with a couple combines not having any range and can't figure out why. Intend on getting service guy out this summer to go though all the trucks and combines.
 
#4 ·
Radio Canada license is per radio with the base stations a bit more than mobiles. I think ours is around 300/year. Basically they reserve a frequency for you and you get your antennas tuned to it. This prevents your neighbor talking on a similar frequency.

I think ours are 50 watt kenwoods. They dont go that far. About 5 miles. I think the distance depends on placement of the antenna. Need to check ours more closely.

I thought cell phones would kill 2-ways but hasnt happened yet.
 
#9 · (Edited)
You have something severely wrong with your radios if they are 50 watts and you can only speak from 5 miles away. We are running Icoms along with most of our neighbors on VHF. On a good day I can talk about 40 miles from home back to our base in the yard. Sometimes I can get 3 or 4 miles out our handheld radio depending on terrain. We also have a few different neighbors we work with sometimes along with some guys that we haul gravel with and we have each other's channels in our radios. It's nice just being able to flip to their channel when we are working together.
 
#5 ·
We have a radio in every piece of equipment, big tractors, combines, every truck on farm of every size, auger tractors etc. can always get a hold of anyone. Saves so much hassle. At harvest for instance, I can get on there and tell everyone what the plan is and everyone hears it instead of having to phone everyone.

We have kenwoods from Prarie Mobile Communications, also have some problems with range, I think the all the electronics in the new equipment are causing a lot of it. Radios in older semis work the best it seems.

Don't even bother with the CB radios.
 
#8 ·
Ok, so I have my land spread out, with the furthest being 20 miles, tons of hills and trees everywhere, I really just need a mile or two of range.. we used those Cheapo handheld radios, but they always need plugging in, guys lose them or forget them in pockets. Perhaps if I attach a cable to them and the machines? Haha!

Is that still my cheapest best solution?
But as you know, they are not very clear To hear.
 
#11 ·
You can buy most any 50 watt radio for around 325.00 to 375.00 , high band then antennas will run around 80.00 for a good mag mount. Internet has some decent deals if you shop a bit . Going the distance add a repeater . Everything here has a 2-way in it even have a couple of spares .Comes in handy if you hire a outside machine .
 
#19 ·
Sorry, may sound like a dumb question, but are these VHF or UHF? Is this the only associated cost? And do I need homebase antennas or anything like that, what does a homebase antenna do for me? just communicate to the yard?
I just need something affordable, that is clear enough to understand a guy a few miles away in hilly, treed terrain, where I can have up to 8 guys communicating with each other. I don't really want to pay fees.
 
#12 ·
I really like our handheld for around the yard. It's nice when you are lifting things and putting objects in place and you have somebody spotting you. Way better then hand signals. Cones in handy if you gave a demo or loaner machine for a day or two. We just use that instead of wiring in a radio. Just done a quick count in my head and we must have 25-30 radios already.
 
#15 ·
We use Kenwoods supplied by Prairie Mobile in Regina. Wouldn't be without radios in all equipment, I consider them a safety item, you can quickly grab the mike and warn someone about a situation, ie; someone pulling up behind you......don't back up, when hauling grain and the dust starts hanging in the air on grid roads you can communicate with everyone quickly of someone travelling towards you in the dust, the list goes on and on! The other thing they are really great for is when someone is giving instruction everyone in the operation is up to speed on whats happening. i thought cell phones would kill the radio but cell phones don't even come close for immediate communication!!!
 
#17 ·
We got just about every kind of antenna mount on our equipment. Can't say one works better then the other. On our combine I try to mount it so the hopper doesn't block signal. Maybe we are just lucky. I know on a couple fields the high line messes with reception at times.
 
#24 ·
I do not know on VHF, but UHF you do pay a fee. Not sure it been mentioned here, but big advantage to radios is it bit different to old party lines with telephones when you hoped nobody was listening to what you are saying. With radio there a good chance that good portion of the crew knows what you are saying and communication bit better than when 2 people got ear glued to a cell phone.
 
#26 ·
We have our attennas trimmed to our frequency. If the equipment has factory wiring we use it, otherwise we mainly use mag mounts. Terrain plays a big part in the range you get. Also some guys use sliders to mount their radios. It's quick and easy to move radios then because it is basically plug and play then but I think you lose range with them. We also have a tall base attenna that is mounted to the peak of our shop which also greatly improves the range when talking back to somebody there.
 
#27 ·
The two most common causes of poor radio performance are inadequate power and corroded antenna connections. Radios take a lot of power to transmit. Ideally you'll have a heavy gauge wire run directly (with appropriate circuit protection) to the battery. Definitely not scotch locked to some random 14 gauge hot wire under the dash. The receive signal has to get through your antenna and antenna wire back to the amp or you won't hear anything. That signal has an unimaginably low power level so any little bit of crap in any of the connections will stop it. The most common problem area is right where the antenna screws onto the base - take it off and scrub the connection with a pencil eraser.

Your best resource if you are electronics challenged will be a retired telephone guy. Ideally a retired telephone guy who is also a Ham radio operator. Those guys know all the best places to buy good stuff cheap and they know what works and what you can do that maybe isn't 100% legit but still won't attract the attention of the feds.
 
#29 ·
Has anybody looked into repeaters for their systems? I believe there is a bit more in getting a license, but other than that I am curious if they are worth the investment or not.

Limited knowledge I have was from talking to one of the manufacturers at a trade show. They said you can use a radio as either a transmitting/receiving unit or as a repeater. For instance, you can switch a base model in your shop to repeater mode, and then use the portable around the yard and have the same effective range as if you were in the shop using the base. When you are back in the shop, the base can be switched back to normal function. He said you could also hook in radios to remote door openers and such, so that there is a way to open shop doors etc from any vehicle with a programmable radio. Has anyone done any of this?
 
#35 ·
Has anybody looked into repeaters for their systems? I believe there is a bit more in getting a license, but other than that I am curious if they are worth the investment or not.
You need a good tall location for the repeater antenna and ideally that should be on an elevation of land but if that is available the repeater will be your best solution. You'll be able to go mobile to mobile across the range of your repeater. Handhelds will still have some limits on range because of their lower transmit power but they'll be a lot better too. We used to have reversed channels programmed so that you could bypass the repeater in the field. That way every conversation doesn't have to go out everywhere. There's a variety of multi-user solutions possible on a repeater so you should find that local Ham I referred to and talk to your neighbours if you are serious.
 
#30 ·
So what is considered tall enough for home base antenna? I have quite rugged terrain, but my leg is 110' tall, so if it does work, perhaps can that be used to communicate back to the yard with guys walking around the yard with hand held units? As a repeater perhaps?
Nobody is ever really just standing around in our shop.
 
#31 · (Edited)
We have been using UHF radios for years, and for us cell phones will not replace them. We found CBs frustrating and a waste, because on some days you could talk to somebody hundreds of miles away (signal skip), but you could not talk to the guy in the combine until you drove into the same field he was in (too much interference so the squelch had to be turned way up, which blocked out any weak signals). We pay a licence fee once a year. Back when we first got them, if we had gone to VHF we would have shared a frequency with at least one neighbour, while on UHF we got our own frequency. While UHF is supposed to have more clarity and stability, it is more LINE OF SIGHT than VHF. So if you have rough terrain, VHF may be a better choice if you want long range (check first for available frequencies in your area). We have trees and lots of hills, so our range with properly trimmed antennas on UHF varies from 2 - 30 miles. This means that in our "real world" our useable range is 2 - 8 miles. The difference in range between our 25 watt and 40 watt units is very small. Doubling your power does not even come close to doubling your range (I would guess it may increase range by 30%). If you want to increase range on UHF you need to do it with a better/higher antenna (line of sight is "king").
 
#34 · (Edited)
We've been using business-band VHF radios for over 30 years and wouldn't be without them, even with cell phones. We have a couple of handheld units as well. Seems like with the older wide-band radios we got better range, sometimes 15 miles, limited by line of sight. The newer narrow-band radios sometimes get crazy range, like 25 miles along the river coullee, and other times it's no more than 10. I think our handheld units are 5 watts, and our mobile radios are 30 watts. Base stations can be 50 watts I believe. Those are the IC limits for VHF.

Have one base station right now that isn't transmitting worth a darn. I'm suspecting it's the long cable through the house up to the antenna. Somewhere in the garage is a VHF antenna tester than I need to stick on and see if I have the right impedance and SWR. The antenna and cable are about 30 years old.
 
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