Handy talkies

[mmcever]

HT’s operate on VHF & UHF which are limited to line of sight. Long distance without a repeater is going to be difficult. If it’s an apocalypse type of SHTF then repeaters will be down. If it’s a several day weather related SHTF, then the UV5R is a great choice IF you take the time to learn to program and use them. Like any survival gear, you need to test & train. UV5R’s are cheap, but fairly complicated. Especially if you are not a radio hobbyist. The key to communicating via radio is someone on the other end has to have their radio tuned to the exact same frequency, same offsets and/or sub audible tones. Screw any of this up and it won’t matter if you have 1000 watts. You won’t open the box, turn these on and be able to talk. My advice, take a free, online HAM course. You will learn some very handy fundamental stuff that will make this an easier decision. Whether you pursue the license or not, you will have some expertise to make this work.

Baofeng uv82 is an 8watt updated uv5r. It's a ham uhf/vhf and also uses 400 to 520 frequencies so gmrs is included. I believe I paid 35 dollars for 10 years on the gmrs license and all of my immediate family is umbrellaed. Midland gtx1000 are idiot proof and come preprogrammed but these can't be programmed for use on a repeater and battery life is very limited. Learned the hard way out of lack of knowledge.