Best handheld radio?

Using a marine radio doesn't relieve the licensing requirement. Marine radios are licensed differently from ham radios, but I'm not familiar with exactly how. I dimly recall that their use not near a large body of water is frowned on by both the FCC and the Coast Guard. The latter are known to respond to irritants carrying automatic weapons.

GMRS is tailor made for this type of use, and from what I've read one license covers a whole fleet of radios. Not being familiar with the GMRS products sold I would be tempted to use a MARS-CAP mod 440 mHz ham HT and program it according to the rules for GMRS. That would net me a robust radio used only slightly out of band.
If one of the premier ham radio brands (Yeasu, Icom, Alinco, etc.) offers GMRS radios I would just go with one of those.

If more radio than that is needed, then step up to a ham Tech license. They are not all that hard to get. There are online practice tests that you can take. My method of studying for the test was to take one of the practice tests daily until I knew all of the likely questions and their answers. If you learn about repeaters then you can use the ham 2 Meter band and those repeaters will extend your range by multiple tens of miles, at the minimum. Can look up the existing repeaters in the area of interest to learn their particulars. Knowing their location and some knowledge of the area you should be able predict the rough area of service and where any possible blind zones might be.

cohunt said:

Are you listening to music while you hunt? I personally like large shoulder mounted boom box's

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deadidarren said:

America has more stringent transceiver regulations than here in Australia I can't imagine using marine radios in land or not legal considering every frequency has an allocation.

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You're correct. You can legally use them from land to talk to boats, but that's the limit of what you can do with marine radios on land.

We've been using the midland GXT's for years on our deer lease. They are reasonably priced and range is about 2 miles in heavy woods. Very reliable and best power is using the better energizer batteries and not the rechargeable pack. GMRS legally requires a simple license. Most dont get one, fwiw.

What we use and they do pretty dang good in our hilly country---can hear easily over a 2500 ac place

I have a pair of Motorola T800. You can actually text to an iPhone from an iPhone, (perhaps Android as well) with an app, even if you don't have cell signal.

UHF, VHF, Marine, etc. are strictly line of sight. If there is a hill between you and your buddy, or you and a repeater, it is game over. Doesn't matter how long your antenna is or how much power you are running. My weather radio couldn't get weather from a high powered weather broadcast station in the Black Hills in a valley. Had to hike up on top.
As far as the FCC goes, they delegate amateur regulation, license testing and etc. to the ARRL - a private group that you are not required to join for a license, nor pay dues. Everybody who 'works' for the ARRL is a volunteer. These people dedicate a lot of time and effort and a lot of cash to setup repeaters and home HF (worldwide comms) stations. When an emergency such as a hurricane or typhoon hits, and all the cellie towers are down, they take over comms in cooperation with local emergency responers, the Civil Air Patrol, etc. in order to save peoples lives. They view people who transmit illegally worse than we view people on the forum who advertise performance enhancers, etc., because it can interfere with emergency traffic. As an example, saying 'break break' on a ham freq, unlike on a CB, is the same as dialing 911, and if you go silent they will expend a considerable amount of time trying to rescue you. My understanding is that they no longer have morse code requirements for a license, just knowlege of the technical aspects, frequency usage, and netiquette. So please, if you want to use the ham bands, consider studying a little bit and get tested - $15 for a 10 year license isn't going to kill you.

Noobie said:

UHF, VHF, Marine, etc. are strictly line of sight. If there is a hill between you and your buddy, or you and a repeater, it is game over. Doesn't matter how long your antenna is or how much power you are running. My weather radio couldn't get weather from a high powered weather broadcast station in the Black Hills in a valley. Had to hike up on top.
As far as the FCC goes, they delegate amateur regulation, license testing and etc. to the ARRL - a private group that you are not required to join for a license, nor pay dues. Everybody who 'works' for the ARRL is a volunteer. These people dedicate a lot of time and effort and a lot of cash to setup repeaters and home HF (worldwide comms) stations. When an emergency such as a hurricane or typhoon hits, and all the cellie towers are down, they take over comms in cooperation with local emergency responers, the Civil Air Patrol, etc. in order to save peoples lives. They view people who transmit illegally worse than we view people on the forum who advertise performance enhancers, etc., because it can interfere with emergency traffic. As an example, saying 'break break' on a ham freq, unlike on a CB, is the same as dialing 911, and if you go silent they will expend a considerable amount of time trying to rescue you. My understanding is that they no longer have morse code requirements for a license, just knowlege of the technical aspects, frequency usage, and netiquette. So please, if you want to use the ham bands, consider studying a little bit and get tested - $15 for a 10 year license isn't going to kill you.

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Mostly true.

They did drop the Morse code requirement, I THINK around '91.

As of April 19, 2022, license fees are now $35 for 10 years. You take an exam administered by a local club, who then forward your passing results to the FCC. You sign up at the FCC site, pay your fee and you're set.

I'm going to take issue with the "strictly line of sight" statement as well. Might be true with an HT due to it's low power output, but isn't always true of mobiles. In one notable experience, 2M mobile to 2M mobile, I made contact with another vehicle at close to 30 miles around a mountain. At another location I've repeatedly made contact, over 10+ years, at about 20 miles over a small ridge line. What has given me more trouble than line of sight are high voltage transmission lines. If one party is under them or on the far side of them then contact will be sketchy at best. Note that in neither case is a repeater even available, much less involved.