From: chance wolf (chance_wolf@shaw.ca)
Date: Fri Feb 20 2004 - 19:38:31 PST
----- Original Message -----
From: <rcb.com@att.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 10:44 AM
Subject: [MV] Radio Question
> MVers:
> Is there any hand held radio that is on the same range of frequency as the
RT-524/246
> radios ?????
Lots. The most useful ones however are probably the AN/PRC-68 family sets,
as the earlier stuff tended to be fussy and frustrating. I have AN/URC-68s
here, and, well...temperamental doesn't begin to cover it. Plus the
telescoping antenna is incredibly annoying, the range is poor, and the
speaker audio makes McDonald's Drive-Thrus sound like Home Theatre by
comparison.
The British have some handheld stuff in the same frequency range too, but I
can't remember the model numbers off by heart. On the civilian side of
things, Motorola, Johnson and a few other manufacturer's made low-band stuff
in the same frequency range as the 524 and friends, with the problem that
the modulation is narrow band, where the 524 and military sets are wide
band. In practical terms, it means that when you're at the 524 trying to
listen to someone talking to you on the civilian-type handheld - the first
thing you do is reach for the 524's volume knob and crank it. The second
thing is you tell your opposite number on the handheld to scream into the
microphone. Not pretty.
Unfortunately, everyone else and their dog is after the PRC-68/126 sets, and
they command big bucks prices everywhere. Sometimes they show up on Ebay
for a reasonable price, but as with anything on Ebay, it's not only "Buyer
Beware" but "Buyer Beware Long Distance".
Older sets like the AN/PRC-6 and AN/PRT-4 (with separate helmet receiver
AN/PRR-9) will work too, but each have their own little idiosyncratic
problems even if you do manage to work out the battery hassle for yourself.
There are also a fair number of German SEM-52A handheld sets on the market
right now with combination earphone/microphone assemblies included, but I
think they're all narrow-band units, so you're still stuck with the
screaming-into-the-mike problem you have with the civvy stuff. I've got two
at work, and though they run on AA cells which is a nice change from the
U.S. stuff, I found their mod level quite low indeed.
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