Hello All,
My name is Fabio, and I live in the suburbs of Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil. I work for the Environment ministry here, and routinely travel to remote destinations all over the country, from the amazon basin to the south plains. I've been reading this forum for at least 3 years, and I would like to thank all of you for the invaluable information here. It opened to me a new word to me about survival and emergency preparedness.

I would like to ask your opinion about a Emergency radio I just found in the internet: the Midland XT511. What do you think about the idea of a FRS/GMRS and emergency radio in the same package?

Thanks, and I´m avaliable to answer any eventual questions about my country.

Fabio

There is a lot of stuff on this radio.

The AM/FM with a crank is something I think most of us should have, and I have a couple. (One each for both of our BOBs.) If an when something occurs, having a radio through which one can get information may be very helpful.

Is an FRS/GMRS radio something that is going to help you? Will there be someone else listening? Will they be within range?

My other issue with the FRS/GMRS radio is who is going to be listening? If I encoutnered some emergency and needed assistance, I don't think this is the way in which I would want to go about hailing it. I own a marine VHF radio, that I could use for hailing assistance, but I also live near a major port, so there is some hope someone might hear me.

I have a pair that are supposed to be good for ten miles, but I cannot communicate the five miles from my office to my apartment. In NYC, we have tall buildings that may be in the way preventing communication, so it does not surprise me that range is limited. My plan is to use the radios we have when we need communication and are within range. Part of my plan requires us to reach one of a few places at which we will meet. I like the idea of this product, but we need to be able to get within a relatively short distance to use these radios.

We have been using the FRS/GMRS radios. I pull them out and have each of sue take one, and we use them or try to. So, I know that someone else is there for me to talk to.

I like the idea of the radio, but I have not used one. My past experiences with Midland's product is that they are not the best, usually reasonably priced, and usually work. If I was going to be using a radio a lot, I'd want it to be better than the Midland's I've used. However, I've not used any Midland in a few years, so this one might be fine. When it comes to putting it into a kit, it might be priced well.

It's been years since my last trip to Brasil, but it really enjoyed being there.

Welcome Fabio! At first, the idea of a crank-operated FRS/GMRS radio seemed like a good idea to me, but I quickly realized that you probably would not be able to recharge the internal battery very well with just the crank. I think that is why you only see crank-operated AM/FM radio receivers, but nothing that actually transmits a signal because it takes a lot of energy to send a signal out.

FRS/GMRS is useful to keep in touch with members of your own group, but would be a poor choice to try and call for help from other people. The range is very short and no one is actively listening. And rescue planes/helicopters, park rangers, etc. won't have radios that use FRS/GMRS either.

Actually, it would help if you could explain how you intend to use this radio. That will help us narrow down our comments to what you're actually interested in.

Fabio,

Welcome to the fire, newguy (though after lurking for three years I probably shouldn't call you new).

Um, I don't have anything to add about radios.

-Blast

Fabio, We have a few Brazilian members who hopefully can give input. Midland is a well established seller of radios. There are a few annual 'buyers guides' with good reviews. I would suggest a web search to see if there are any forums devoted to radios for their input.

I'm not a fan of crank stuff and looking at this one I wouldn't buy it. Look at page 8 of the manual, the crank charges an NiMH pack. So first issue to me is replacement packs, you have to buy or rebuild a new pack when this one is dead which costs more than standard batteries like AA. An NiMH battery needs a smart charger to give it a long lifespan and you can't really do that with a crank as you need constant power into the charge circuit. Also NiMH have a high rate of self discharge and shouldn't be stored discharged or be drained too low to prevent cell reversal. So you still need to pull it out and crank up a maintenance charge every so often. Even then without a good smart charger your going to need a new pack in a few short years.
This does run from AA's also so buy a good charger and some of the new low self discharge batteries like Sanyo Eneloop then just pup them in the charger every so often whenever your checking and rotating the rest of your gear like water or medication. Then just buy a radio without the crank.

Welcome Newguy!

"...it takes a lot of energy to send a signal out..."

What he said...

If this type of radio isn't suitable for Fabio's situation, what would be? A small ham radio? Something else? With the varied terrain in that part of the world, is there really something that would be better than anything else?

Sue

I would think a decent sat phone and a list of appropriate numbers would suffice.

Thanks for all the comments!

I need to clarify that I’m looking for some kind of FRS base-station. We have a kind of emergency radio net in my neighborhood, using FRS radios. It started working very well, but the problem is that very often my neighbors forgot to charge the radios, and to place them with the antennas pointing up in good locations inside the house. I think that the problem can be solved with some kind of "power on an forget" FRS base station, charged by a wall wart. I had a look on the “Audiovox” brand base stations also, but I thought that would be interesting to combine the base station with others functions.

In my case I solved the problem with an old “Radioshack” brand FRS Mobile/base station laying around the shack(I’m into ham radio…), powered by a 12v battery and solar charger, but it is “too technical” and beyond the interests of my neighbors.

Fabio