49 MHz Range Testing Part 15 Experimentation

[chanito]

Military (Magnavox) PRC-68A or B are good 49MHz radios if you can find them. Last pair I had went to eBay a decade ago. They put out about 1 watt on fresh batteries.

Czech Army Military RF-10 radio sets are all over eBay for about $100-$150.

The other surprisingly impressive 49MHz radios are the old style baby monitor base stations. Some of those could be tuned up to a half watt or so and with an outdoor antenna, could be received well over a mile away with a Realistic talkie.

[R4002]

Military (Magnavox) PRC-68A or B are good 49MHz radios if you can find them. Last pair I had went to eBay a decade ago. They put out about 1 watt on fresh batteries.

Czech Army Military RF-10 radio sets are all over eBay for about $100-$150.

The other surprisingly impressive 49MHz radios are the old style baby monitor base stations. Some of those could be tuned up to a half watt or so and with an outdoor antenna, could be received well over a mile away with a Realistic talkie.

The old style baby monitors are still in use around me (at least to some degree).  One of them appears to be either putting out more than the legal amount of power or is just in a really good location/running a really good antenna.  It does about 1/3 of a mile or so on 49.830 MHz. 

I'm taking a look at the RF-10 manpack radio sets on eBay now.  Pretty decent specs, reminds of me of the PRC-8/9/10 series.  1 watt TX power 44.000 MHz to 53.975 MHz.  49.850 MHz/49.875 MHz lol

[Pigmeat]

Military (Magnavox) PRC-68A or B are good 49MHz radios if you can find them. Last pair I had went to eBay a decade ago. They put out about 1 watt on fresh batteries.

Czech Army Military RF-10 radio sets are all over eBay for about $100-$150.

The other surprisingly impressive 49MHz radios are the old style baby monitor base stations. Some of those could be tuned up to a half watt or so and with an outdoor antenna, could be received well over a mile away with a Realistic talkie.

LOL! When my daughter was a baby we had a couple of those monitors. We also had a couple of old women who would ragchew on the HT's at either end of the block, and a Wendy's directly behind us who used a couple of frequencies in that band to relay orders from from the drive-thru customers.

I put the baby down for a nap one morning and told her I loved her. The next thing I heard those old ladies say was, "Did you hear that, Shirley? That man just said he loved you!" That went on for weeks until they started blaming a ham who lived across the the street and up the block.

I stayed away from messing with the fast food joint. I'd worked in enough of those as teen to know that you got the boot for consistently screwing up orders.