FRS is my grown up version of the old walkie talkies we had as kids that operated down in the HF spectrum somewhere (below 30 Mhz). They are smaller, more powerful, and generally hold up better, plus they have lots of channels, but really not a big improvement. We used to pack our old walkies around with us in the big woods once in a while. We were mindful of the bulk of our loads, so when planning a 10-20 mile excursion where we weren't likely to be any further apart than we could yell to each other, the walkies didn't always come with us. Same holds true today for our FRS, although because they've gotten so small they are a lot easier to pack along, but it seems we encounter more and more high traffic areas, where we can't find a clean channel to use most of the time. Privacy codes aren't anything more than a low frequency tone the radio transmits along with your voice, so if someone is already on the channel or is monitoring it for traffic, you will either get interference, or they will hear everything you say.

GMRS works much the same, except for the inclusion of repeaters, which makes a whole world of change. We've set up GMRS repeater system on mobile platforms up in the hills and used GMRS handhelds to talk to each other from 25 miles apart. You can't do that with FRS handhelds. The beauty is no one else gets to use that channel while we are, so no interference, although they can still listen to our traffic (unless we switch on the encryption mode. Then they won't know what we are saying).

FRS are getting so cheap now I wouldn't waste money on lower power stuff. For $100 you can get a pair of rechargables that run at the maximum ERP and last a good 4 hours of regular use per charge. Heck, you can even get FRS radios that transmit GPS data so you can see where your buddies are on an LCD display. How cool is that?!!!