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Even if rescuers do not routinely monitor all the possible channels of FRS, GMRS, HAM... if one or the other got rescued, even if the other party is out of range, they can tell SAR personnel that the other DOES have a radio, and what channel they're on. That immediately allows them to cover much larger swaths of land during their search pattern, as they may wander within radio range long before the could see you (if they could see you at all)

Even the cheapo radios may prove useful, and they're dirt cheap, so why not? (GMRS licencing is of course important to stay legal, although in an emergency I don't think I'd feel too bad about it).


I must respecftully disagree. You are creating an unlikely and overly-complex hypothectical to justify a flawed premise. DO NOT TRUST YOUR LIFE TO AN FRS RADIO. SAR is not going to conduct an investigation into what you may or may not have with you. The likelihood is they will not even have with them any equipment capable of monitoring FRS frequencies. All radio equipment sold in the US must be type-approved by the FCC. Aircraft raidio will not tune to FRS frequencies and an unmodified amateur radio may monitor, but not transmit on those frequencies. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HEAR YOU PERIOD.

On the other hand, hams are dedicated people. I guarantee you that hams were monitoring frequencies in the area as soon as they heard someone was lost. And if SAR was able to do any investigation, they would find my name in the FCC license database pretty quickly. Law enforcement and ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) are tight. The right people with triangulation equipment could be brought in quickly.

Don't go cheap, go smart. Used amature HTs can be picked up off Ebay for about the same price as some of the so called "long range" FRS/GMRS units.

Trust me on this one, FRS is only slightly better than 500mw child's toy you buy at Wal-Mart. Get your license and get the right equipment. Its not difficult and you will meet a helluva lot of nice people along the way.

Craig.