FRS Radio – 3 Key Factors To Look For

You might be looking for an FRS radio for any number of reasons.  Perhaps you’d like to be able to communicate with family members or friends over certain distances.  Or maybe you’d like to harness the use of an FRS radio headset, for the use of your business or enterprise.  At present, any person who’s looking to buy FRS radios will find that there are quite a lot of different products to choose from, from different companies, some of which have unique or distinguishing features.

With all this available choice, it can be a rather daunting task to choose one particular make or model, to fit your own particular needs.  Of course, you’ll want to make sure that the product you buy offers real value for money, and is of good quality.  In order to increase the chance that you’ll end up purchasing a good product, there are a number of points to watch out for.  Keep these in mind when you’re comparing different products with one another.

1.  Take note of the FRS radio range of each product.

This particular characteristic is very important because the range of the device will determine its usefulness.  If the product’s range is shorter than what your family or your business needs, then it’s no good.  Keep in mind, however, that when manufacturers claim that their products can broadcast up to a certain distance, this range is usually the absolute maximum that the device can manage, under ideal conditions such as level terrain with nothing getting in the way.

The claimed range is usually something approaching 2 miles, but more realistic estimates put the working distance at from 0.25 to 1 mile.  To get a better idea of what a particular product can really do, see if you can try the device out yourself, or if you know someone who’s already bought it, see if you can borrow the units for a while and give them a test run.  If that isn’t possible, then go online to look for testimonials from real people who have the particular brand and model.

2.  Check if the unit has the adjustable squelch feature.

This is something that both FRS and GMRS radios usually offer.  It’s really useful because what it does is filter out the interference and static which might otherwise make communication really difficult.  You want a model which does this automatically so that the filtering takes place with little to no input on your part, and you can just focus on using the radio to communicate.  If a model doesn’t have this feature, then it’s probably a good idea to look to the next brand or model.

3.  Find out what kind of battery the device uses.

Different devices make use of different kinds of batteries.  This will have implications in terms of convenience and usability.  For instance, some radios make use of AA or AAA batteries.  This could potentially be quite convenient because if you ever find yourself at a low battery level, then you can simply drop by a convenience store and get yourself a new set of batteries.  The downside though is that you will need to buy batteries for the device eventually, and if you choose to get rechargeable ones, the cost can be substantial.

Other devices already come with NiMH rechargeable batteries or something similar.  The downside here is that you can’t just buy batteries at a store when you find yourself in a pinch.  The upside, however, is that you don’t have to purchase batteries separately.