moving soon to 250 acres and lots of acreage surrounding that. no, didn't win the lottery. my son has 10 acres we r moving to and it adjoins this land we have access to. am thinking about getting some communications as phones not always best option. any recommendations from users on best long range reliable walkie talkies appreciated. maybe even a base station in house and something in the kawasaki mule.

A 2 meter radio would take care of your needs, but would require licensing. The tech class licenses aren't that hard, but would require some studying.
If you were to go that route and get your tech ticket, the yaesu ft60 is nearly bullet proof. Baofang radios are cheap, but you get what you pay for.
https://www.hamradiolicenseexam.com/index.html

Marine band. or the better GMR radios.

Or the radios that link with your cell phone.

All the us bear hunters in my area use marine band 10 to 15 miles is very common on the bigger truck mounted ones and 5 or better miles on the hand held.

Relatively inexpesive

Marine band meaning VHF radios?

I have two in the boat and another in the shop. Often receive over 30 miles away.

Shop is 3 miles from the Salt Water at 800 ft elevation, I can chat from the boat with a person in the shop when I am 20 miles out in the salt.

Hand helds not as much range due to power.

quote:

Originally posted by john c.:
moving soon to 250 acres and lots of acreage surrounding that. no, didn't in the lottery. my son has 10 acres we r moving to and it adjoins this land we have access to. am thinking about getting some communications as phones not always best option. any recommendations from users on best long range reliable walkie talkies appreciated. maybe even a base station in house and something in the kawasaki mule.

Put a marine VHF in the mule, they are compact. Hand held not so much range. And a base in the house. Use an 8 ft antenna on the house or a pole, the higher the antenna the more range you will have.

Channel 16 is the one the Coast Guard uses, so if you are near the coast stay off 16.

CB's are range limited. I have one in the boat to communicate with nearby fishing buddies in their boats, keeps me off the VHF for idle fishing chatter.

i like this the best so far. lots of choices on amazon

I’ve had several of the low cost ones that advertise 10, 18, 36 miles. Total junk. They might work for 1/2 mile straight line no obstructions.
Was just on a mountain elk hunt. Outfitter had marine radios. They worked at least a mile in rough terrain with some dense trees.

thats good infor. thanks

it's 250 acres.
run some string with a tin can on each end.
or buy some Barbie walkie talkies, your only talking like 50 yards in any direction here.

read the post again. slowly. the first sentence says "and lots of acreage surrounding that".
second, if you think 50 yards in any direction comprises 250 acres, you need to step outside of your apartment and take a nature walk.

I would look at the icom radios. There not the smallest or lightest but they do work. Use them bear and hog hunting. I’ve not seen anything comparable .

we have no apartments here, and
I'm fully aware that 250 acres is 1/4 of a hay field.

radios work on line of sight, if you have hills there you need to penetrate them or have a high enough antenna on the home station to receive the signal.

it's hard to make a radio work in places where cell phones don't unless you have the line of sight thing figured out.

Unless you have poor signal strength, cell phones ARE the best option. Turn off the ringer and use vibrate, send texts, etc- much quieter than talking on a radio.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
Unless you have poor signal strength, cell phones ARE the best option. Turn off the ringer and use vibrate, send texts, etc- much quieter than talking on a radio.

we do that when hunting. but with the noise of the kawasaki diesel mule, the tractor, the grandkids screaming everytime they catch a fish outta the stock ponds, gunfire at the range, etc etc we need something to cut thru all that. occassionally someone has needed to get through to someone else and the phone call has been missed entirely. and this is in south central tx. i guarandamntee you line of sight is up to 3 miles any direction.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:Unless you have poor signal strength, cell phones ARE the best option. Turn off the ringer and use vibrate, send texts, etc- much quieter than talking on a radio.

For years I set my cell phone on vibrate. A couple of years ago I was about to shoot a deer when the phone went off. The deer heard it and took off. I never realized how loud the vibrate function is until it went off in the silence of the woods. Now I turn the phone off.

Dave