Does anyone have any experience with two-way radio communication projects? I’d like a small “black box” style radio that can tuck into a pouch or pocket for communication between a group in costume at an event (relatively short range, inside a large building like a convention center) but know zero about the subject and have too many other chainsaws in the air to take it on. How big of a project is this kind of thing?
I’m kinda looking at trying to pick up a pair of these and seeing if they will work for what I need:
Wouldn’t it be easier to use OTS FRS radios that can fit external microphones/speakers and work from that? (Basically make a custom mic/speaker unit and just connect that to an OTS radio.)
Not worth trying to build something, IMO. There are enough cheap walkie-talkies out of China that come with batteries, headsets, displays, antennas etc. for very little money that it’s just not worth it.
I’d get a pair of Baofeng BF-T1 - I’ve seen these on sale for as little as $12 CAD, they come with a cheap but serviceable headset and are really pretty tiny.
And the USB programming cable:
Keep in mind that unless you have a ham radio license and use these in the 70cm band, they are not legal to use. If you program them for FRS/GMRS frequencies I can’t see anyone caring, though. If you want to stay legal, your only viable option is going to be OTS FRS/GRMS radios purchased in Canada.
I don’t think there is any legal way to operate these in Canada. The only license-exempt band in their 400-470MHz range is for GMRS/FRS. You can only transmit on the GMRS band with a radio fulfilling a bunch of restrictions which are typically not met by cheap radios from China. There might also be a requirement for them to be certified by Industry Canada. In this case though, I’m not entirely sure they’d actually be illegal if programmed properly. The restrictions that such devices typically run afoul of are either having a removable antenna, or having front-panel programming. This radio has neither, so it might actually be legal. Either way, if you program it for GMRS, I doubt anyone is going to give you a hard time, but technically it is not allowed.
For programming, you can use CHiRP. It includes a datafile for GMRS. You might want to add a DCS squelch code to each of the channels (‘privacy code’). It’s pretty easy.