HR2.0 - Best Handheld Ham Radio for Off Grid | Hunting - Survival Ham Radio

Today I talk about my 5 current picks for Handheld Ham Radios at my Hunting Lease, where we operate off grid. All radios have various features and options that make them good for off grid or survival prepping while hunting, camping or operating in the wild.

Find all items in this video at this link - https://kit.co/kc5hwb/best-handheld-ham-radio-for-the-hunting-lease

 

Good grief, what's with that face?
Why?

 

Survival ham radio? Why would anyone trust their life to amateur radio?

 

That would be a stupid move for sure.

Hunters around use 2m HT's all the time and none of them are licensed to DO HAM so they must be onto survival and stuff.

 

Seriously?

 

Your signature made me laugh
"My Inverted-L identifies as a 4-square."

 

Thanks! You're the first to notice!

 

Nice one Jason

 

Sorry, but you could call CQ every day for a week on 2m where I live and no one will answer you and I live in a city. Especially just with a hand held. You would not be able to depend on it for survival. Your best hope would be to call on the marine VHF channel 16, which would be a breach of your licence terms unless a matter of life or death.

 

In an emergency everything is open to you to communicate. That said a personal locator is the best option then a sat phone. If your a serious Hunter/Pilot/Sailor one or both will be in your bag along with an air horn to alert your party. If I am way out in the boonies I will have a portable HF rig at the camp as comms are assured. Having a 2 meter handheld for emergencies is just dead weight and if you really are hunting you don't want a squelch breaking while your stalking prey.
This is a clik me vid, nothing more.

 

I generally try not to be critical of these youtube videos because they do take some effort and capability to produce (sorry fat hams, but mumbling into your chest while fiddling with a radio is not good content). However, I had to chuckle when the OP referred to his lease with campers, generators, and water tanks as "off grid". Dude, you brought the grid with you.

I'm a hunter as well. Our camp is either a collection of hammocks for short trips (1-4 nights) or wall tents if we're going to be there a week or more. We use 2m radios as well, but not the charming chinese cheapies (CCCs). For the longer-term camps, we use a 2m mobile rig with a lead acid battery/solar panel, and a ground plane antenna up at 15' above ground for the "camp" radio and HTs up in the mountains. This gives us strong comms back to camp and an ability to reach a handful of repeaters in the surrounding region (amateur radio is popular in this part of the country and there are a bunch of repeaters within 50 miles). But for the "light" camps, we just go with HTs. We have the necessary cables to recharge our HTs via 12v batteries and/or have AA adapters (both in my case).

Also, on a recent camping trip (not hunting, but in the same region we hunt), 146.52 FM was busy as heck the entire time. It wouldn't have been difficult to raise an alarm via 2m if it came to that.

This is our typical camp (squirrel this time):


Chris

 

Forcing one to register to see the items is just not cricket.

 

A similar topic came up at my 4x4 club for some older people who had no interest in getting licensed but just wanted a radio in the car for emergencies on a trail by themselves. I was not encouraging.

A satellite messaging unit like InReach would be a much better choice. Besides, the best “safety gear” is to not travel alone on a trail anyway.

 

[/QUOTE]

Agreed...I feel QRZ is becoming nothing more than a popular place for "You Tubers" to post links to their channels to increase viewership. That, in and of itself, doesn't bother me. What does bother me are the number of people who are doing it to make a name for themselves to feel relevant and become "stars"...not to mention increase their income. There are several amateurs out there who have YouTube channels and do not advertise it here...simply because they don't make the videos for the money or the "fame." They do it to pass on information they feel others will find interesting or beneficial.

As for what makes him an expert - he never claimed to be an expert. The subject matter is rather subjective and he stated the radios are his top five picks...although the title of this thread does imply he's telling everyone these are the best radios to have. But I don't think that was his intent.

That said - based on the videos I've seen and the lifestyles these "famous" YouTubers have, I've decided to should give it a try myself. I just need to come up with something others would find interesting. But, because I don't want to appear a hypocrite, if I do create a channel - I won't be posting about it here. I'll find other avenues.

 

Hopefully the number of these videos produced will drop precipitously after the authors (and the rest of us) can resume normal activities when the pandemic is over.