UKH

Hi there. 

My wife and I regularly visit Scotland with our labrador. He is getting older and is unable to do the walks we used to so we are going to start walking separately in the foothills of the Cairngorms. We would.like to get some two way radios to keep in touch if one of us stays at the cottage as there is no mobile reception. Any recommendations please for the best 2 ways to buy for reliable communication. The terrain would potentially be hilly and mountains as well as forest so I'm not expecting miracles but I'd like to give us the best chance possible of keeping in touch. 

Thank in advance.

Ask ChatGPT ? 

Range will be much of a muchness for anything that is legal to use without a license of some sort as you would mostly be looking at PMR446 radios, have a look at Motorola units and see what features suit you.

If you haven't got line of sight you'll struggle with any PMR446 radios however much you spend, and without an amateur license (each) those are your only legal options. Something from Motorola would be about the best you could do.

If you went to the trouble of getting foundation amateur radio licenses you'd be able to transmit on longer wavelengths and get something like a baofeng uv5r which would work on the 2m band. That'd be better but still limited.

I had a look at some motorola and also thought about the BCA bc link 2.0 eu. I appreciate I'm not going to get a huge amount of range at all in the terrain ill be in so just wanted to get the best possible. I don't want to spend 300 quid and it not work but also I don't want to spend 90 quid and not have a chance. If we got licences would it massively improve the possibility of good connection through the terrain? I'm not expecting to have a conversation if she is 5 miles away but a couple of miles through woodland would be enough I think.

Possibly.  But pancakeandchips is incorrect to say that amateur (ham) radio licences are your only legal option for more power.

A 'Simple UK Business Radio Licence' (just the one) from OFCOM would cost you £75 for a five-year term, so in effect £15 per annum.  And you just buy one of those licences with no hoops to jump through, much less hassle.  (Though quite honestly the chances of you having your collar felt if you didn't bother would be absolutely neglible.)

PMR446 radios are UHF, and VHF tends to be better outdoors.  The legal limit on power for a PMR446 radio is 0.5W, whereas a VHF walkie talkie on a 'Simple UK' licence can be up to 5W.

Typically a second-hand pair of decent but slightly outdated professional quality walkie-talkies that fit the bill would be about a hundred quid.  eg: ebay item number 235213454425.

What distance would that work over? Over.

Working while walking over? Over.

Couple of left field ideas:

Try a different mobile network, especially check you're not on three or a related company: their rural reception is dismal due to lack of 2g.

A satellite messenger like an inreach would work anywhere (at a cost)

All VHF, UHF and higher frequencies are basically line of sight.  So If your wife is one side of a hill and you are on the other then side you are unlikely to hear her or vis a vis regardless of what power they have.  That said the line of sight works a bit like the way light from a bright torch can be seen if its just over the brow of a hill or around a corner of a hill.  The radio waves scatter a little, but not too much!!  

If you are on the top of Cairngorm you'll easily be able to work someone in Aviemore, but not if they are down in the Laraig Ghru or at the bottom of one of the corries well out of line-of-sight.  Radio amateurs using either  VHF or UHF radios from summits  have worked 80 miles or more using fairly standard kit  to another ham on another hill/mountain - providing there are not large hills blocking the path of the radio waves.    

I am an licensed amateur radio ham, and to be quite honest I find that from most but not all summits you'll have some kind of mobile signal  from somewhere on the top or on the 'shoulder', of a hill where the phone is likely  to have 'better', view of some distant mobile mast- but likely from the middle of the 'gorms or  in the middle of a mountain range.  So provided the other user is also within the sight of a mobile mast/transmitter they'll be able to contact you and the other way around.

If you can afford it, I'd go with deepsoup's suggestion and get a business radio licence and see how you get on, if you have already decided against using your own phones, or see how you get on with  PMR 446 legal radios and see how you get on.

The  next stage up the ladder might be to try and look to get  a  Foundation Licence for amateur radio and investigate the possibility of getting hand held HF radios which I know some amateurs use on/from hills and these have much better capabilities, but will cost more.  (I've never used one so I can't comment further).

PS the Foundation Licence is quite simple, involves zero technical info beyond knowing how to stay legal and not cause interference with other users etc., etc.,   

BCA bc link 2.0 eu are just ruggedized PMR446 radios, so the range won't be significantly better than the cheapo ones. Though significantly less likely to die due to rough treatment.

Or get SIMs from a non-mainland UK network that will roam onto any of the UK networks e.g. one from Sure in Guernsey. They should work unless there's no signal from any networks at all.

As said above vhf is line of sight and handhelds are not the most powerful anyway. So a pair of semaphore flags will almost be as useful as vhf in hilly terrain never mind wooded areas. I do have a marine radio operators licence and have a hh vhf radio on the boat so do have limited experience. The satellite system mentioned above would be your most robust.