Mobile radios are radios you put in your vehicle. Why get a mobile? They have more power than a hand-held, your command station (vehicle) is just gas-and-go, nothing to put up or take down in the field, it's always protected from the weather, can be relocated faster than on foot.
You'll very often see mobile radios for vehicles out in the fields or even on a ham's desk in their office. Why? Because mobile radios are designed to withstand shock, vibration, movement, they are designed to fit in small spaces, run on variable power (electrical charging systems aren't always constant), run through a variety of temperature extremes, etc. etc. In other words, most ham radios are designed with mobility in mind (not all, but most).
So, what radio do you pick for your vehicle?
For emergency preparedness, ERC, you really only need a few features which most radios come with:
- BANDS - VHF/UHF - some radios do come with only VHF, but our backup band is the 70cm (UHF) band, so having UHF as well is really helpful.
- POWER - ≥25W power.
Most mobile radios are just VHF/UHF, some will be advertised as a "tri-band" or "quad band" and you really have to look at what that means. Most hams buy two radios for their vehicles if they are doing both VHF/UHF and HF - one for the former, and one for the latter because the latter also requires a separate antenna system. Even if you do get an all-in-one like the Yaesu 991A, you'll still need two antennas for it if you're going to operate on all bands. For ERC as a Technician Licensee, you primarily need VHF/UHF.
Here's a few features I like when it comes to emergency preparedness.
- Dual monitoring (can listen to two channels at once).
- ≥50W power - you may even see 75W, and even 25W will get you out pretty good across our stake. In a total disaster, when the electrical grid goes out, most of the radio interference (Radio Frequency Interference - RFI) disappears and your range drastically increases.
Bonus feature:
- Detachable face-plate - means you can mount the radio body someplace, and run a cord to the faceplate and put it somewhere you can see it much easier than trying to fit a bulky body and get everything aimed just right so you can see it.
Beyond that for emergency prep and being able to communicate, you're good to go.
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| QYT-KT8900R - fixed faceplate |
When it comes to purchasing radios, caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). You can buy used radios and they may work perfectly well (off eBay, Facebook, etc.). I've had some great success that way, but also, if radios are exposed to smokers, etc., or have been used a bit hard, you may not see it or notice it until later. I've bought used ones where I just needed a replacement part for another radio. For other things, I'm just fine with Amazon (for my handhelds) and bigger purchases I use DX Engineering or Gigaparts (links to the right on this blog). If you're out and about you can stop into a ham shop and buy a radio there (closest ones I saw last time were a few hundred miles from here). I haven't purchased a radio from The Antenna Farm, but I have ordered other supplies for antennas from them (link also on the right).
Also, radios for or from different parts of the world (i.e., a Yaesu built for use over in Japan versus the USA) often come preprogrammed with different frequencies than the USA. I tried to save money by getting a great deal on a ham radio from Japan/for Japan only to find I couldn't use it here and had to send it back. If you're ordering it from a stateside vendor, most likely it will be suited for use in the USA.
I have one of these - This is a low-end radio that I put in my go-kit and it works perfectly fine, puts out 25W and I have it hooked to a LiFePO4 battery. This is a QYT-KT8900R (don't ask me what the letters mean, Chinese radios come with numbers and letters for the name). I bought it used off Ebay for ~$70, it could go into a vehicle or even go on your desk (You'd probably have to change the wiring for the power supply, but that's easy, hams do that all the time). It does everything I would need for an emergency.
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| TYT-TH9800 - faceplate detaches |
My first mobile radio (which I love) is the TYT-TH9800,
a Chinese radio that, for the features, is extremely inexpensive (I paid a little over $200). It
also is capable of listening on the air-bands (listening to aircraft or
air traffic control) and can be unlocked to communicate outside of ham
frequencies without having to have hardware changed (i.e., have someone
remove a resistor inside to open up frequencies for you thereby
impacting your warranty). While we don't communicate out-of-band, for
a disaster scenario, being able to communicate on EMS frequencies can be a real comfort and lifesaver or even help to EMS services. It also has cross-band-repeater capabilities where you can use this radio as a repeater, i.e., park your vehicle on a hill while you hike into a valley and use your handheld to reach the vehicle's radio which then relays your signal to a repeater. It also has a detachable face-plate. It can also communicate on the 6M and 10M bands. We don't use either of those bands as a church, and I haven't used them on the radio.
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| Yaesu FT-400 - separate faceplate |
families, we have some pretty basic frequencies we'll be relying on to communicate and get information over. Features like digital WIRES-X or GPS we really don't need, neither do we need a fancy LCD touch screen - those also suck up more power faster from your battery supply. But if you're a serious enthusiast, this is a fantastic rig in my experience, I've not even begun to tap how to use its full capabilities. It's a lot of fun (and the price has come down quite a bit on it since I bought mine). This is one of those ones that requires a hardware change (cutting out a resistor from the circuitry) to unlock it to use beyond ham bands.
On my more expensive radios I did pay for the warranty and service package.
You can mount your radio about anywhere you want. I am not a fan of drilling into my car or doing extensive work with interior panels - mount-and-go is my style - so I passed the power cords through a grommet in the firewall with my Acura that was up under the dashboard using a coat hanger and one of my kids to get the wiring from the battery to the radio. That was actually the hardest part, get the coat hanger through, and then attach the wire to it using a tiny bend in the coat hanger and pull it back through. With my van, I just drilled a hole in the dash where the feed line came through. I mounted my radio body in my Acura on the driver's side down near my right leg with the speaker pointed out so I could hear better, so that I can turn the AC on down on my feet and have it cool the radio, and just beware not to cook it with heat down on my feet (they hold up pretty well with heat, but take care of your equipment).
In my van I mounted my radio to my right and below the dashboard and aimed towards me so I could see it. I wish I'd known about detachable face plates then or the Lido mounts (see next paragraph).
There are many mounts you can get for a detachable faceplate, I used a Lido seat-bolt mount on the passenger side with my Yaesu FT400. You'll need to get mount that matches your radio because different radios have different attachments, and you may need to order a longer cord from the faceplate to the body depending on your arrangements (check Amazon or whoever you buy the radio from).
Prayerfully consider what to get, don't go broke doing this, save up if you want to, but when you're ready, get your radio, save your receipt, it's easier than you think and we can help get you going.
When you buy a radio, you're going to need to get an antenna and some wiring supplies which will be covered in the next entries.
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