Is there a defined set of frequencies for running competition or training exercises?
VHF?
UHF?
FRS?
MURS?

If you're not licensed you're better off using FRS or MURS.

I "monitor" 11.175 MHz, 6.712 kHz, 8.992 kHz, 11244.0 kHz, 13.200 MHz, and 15.016 MHz frequently. USB.

As far as defined frequencies civilians can use, no. There is not. ARFCOM has a few frequencies that we have set aside though. They can be found in the Net threads, consider that practice for SHTF. Being able to have directed contacts just about anywhere takes practice.

If shit goes down, here is where to listen: http://www.monitoringtimes.com/mtsubscriber/MT%20Mil-Gov%20Freq%20List.pdf

A little more background. I have mostly VHF gear. I have one old dual band ht.(yaesu). None of them have headset connectors in common. I don't want three or four different setups.
I have
HS370
MOTOROLA VHF
YAESU FT 270
FT 470
Motorola has a reputation for being tough radios. They are hard to program. I don't have a cable for that yet.
I have the cable for the hs370.
Yaesus don't need software.

GMRS is an easy way to go for good communication.

You can purchase the license, it's good for an entire family, and you don't have to take an exam.   It's not easy to get a group of guys to go take a test, but dudes will pay and register for GMRS fairly easily.  That way you can get a group of folks, including your lowest common denominators, and because GMRS operates in the UHF band if you have a real nice radio that has UHF you can still use it to talk down to your GMRS buddies.

Lot of overlanders are doing GMRS as well, people are making the switch from CB to GMRS for those types of activities.  With GMRS you can also find repeaters, which is nice.  

That's like saying "north america" or "south america", have to be more specific than that. If you're talking about the technical/physics characteristics of the different bands, that's dependent on the environment that you're using them in. Other considerations might drive selection of one band over the other.

Either of those are suitable. The GMRS frequencies would also be suitable. In some circumstances, a Land Mobile Radio (LMR) setup might be appropriate. The specifics of your environment, distances, etc will determine what is any of the options are better for you, or if any (or none) would work.


The two Yaesus that you have are amateur radio products and will not necessarily work very well on non-amateur frequencies. Their hardware just isn't set up for it regardless of whether the CPU is unlocked to allow operation on non-amateur frequencies.

Programming Motorola LMR gear at the hobbiest level is a challenging proposition. Older Kenwood, Icom, or Vertex LMR gear is generally easier. Older stuff will often require older versions of Windows or even DOS to run the programming software. Easy programming drives a lot of the interest in the chinesium radios (along with the low cost).

No.

Personally, I use one of my UHF LMR freqs.

FRS 22 channel radios now have 2 watts output except on 7 low power channels. Unless you plan on using a repeater,  that should be more than enough for tactical ops.

Are you border recon?

No. Private business dealing with sensitive commodities.

MURS is great for Baofengs. Easy to configure for legal use (narrowband and 2 watts). It's not secure by any means but the vast majority of people have no clue it's even an option.

I wonder if anyone uses the marine channels away from water?

I have encountered only one person carrying a marine handheld back when I was able to hunt by myself. The other members of his party didn't show up. They were using channel 16 of all things. This was northwest SC near the big lakes. I never heard any transmissions on marine, but I only monitored channel 16 while mobile.

Marine channels away from the water is one of the only consistencies that you see if FCC enforcement actions, it's such low hanging fruit. Not to mention that the Coast Guard has a significant network of direction finding stations that constantly monitor the marine channels, which has coverage in places that you wouldn't necessarily suspect since some are set up to cover rivers. I would advise picking some other frequencies.

I'd like to see the list for channels *other* than 16 - there's the Enforcement Actions web page, but in typical .gov fashion, confusing AF.

But good point, why even mess around with Marine, when you can get radios that Rx/Tx in an uninterrupted block, from 136-620mHz for $30. I just grabbed two Radtel 590's that do that.

We have a SHTF comms list in the ARFCOM Ham radio forum. But like any tool, it takes practice to perfect and there are things to learn about radio waves. I would suggest anyone studying and becoming a ham. We have a DMR Digital chat room. TGIF network talk group 556. I have a repeater I built that stays on that talk room permanently here at my house.

Get the license and do GMRS.

FYI, if your 5 team vehicle-surveillance exercise rolls within range of a Home Depot your scary radio traffic will make the new girl cry.

Lol

Back in high school we had a kid that was a ham. He had every drive through frequency at every fast food restaurant in 30 miles. Only 1 place had a wire intercom. As you can imagine when the drunk chicks got in the taco bell drive through for some late night snacks we were waiting. Much hilarity was had, luckily no grave bodily injury was done. We had one instance we had to give up the secret before the drive through kid got pulled out through the window by some chicks boy friend. Never seen a nerdy kid power drift a Thunderbird SC before. He did when the BF gave chase on us.

Yeah those are not the general prepper tacti-comm channels. These are not the frequencies you are looking for {jedi wave} .


In the old days it was very common that drive-thrus were on common low power business frequencies a couple of which are now in the MURS service.

I had some in memory and would often listen out of curiosity of what people were ordering. Occasionally you could get some spicy employee chat on intercom mode. IIRC on intercom the headsets would TX without CTCSS, with CTCSS it would go to the outside speaker.

One day I was in the drive thru in an absolute downpour of rain, and I just ordered via the radio instead of rolling down my window when I got to the speaker. The pickup window had an awning.

Gecko45, is that you?