Take them back - you wasted $20. I am sick and tired of people buying junk and showing up at the Dragon only to tell us they can't hear what is being said. I wish there was a way to get the cheap junk off the market.
Do you want to actually hear what is being said? Do you want to know what is going on? Do you want to be able to tell us that you neeed to pull over for some reason? Then read on.
ALL FRS radios run the same power and must comply with the same antenna and ERP limitations. THis is the law. But while the radios cannot EXCEED these limits, there ARE differences, the more expensive radios do have much better receivers and
some of the cheap ones (like you bought, sorry), actually operate at less than the legal power limit.
Audio quality on the cheap ones will mean you will constantly be saying,
"I heard that, I wonder what they actually said".
I work in the Land MObile division of Kenwood - we don't offer FRS radios, which makes me sad, but fact is, the FRS market is a waste of time because people wont' buy a quality radio when they can buy junk - and the market if flooded with junk.
SO, I must recommend the competition (I may vomit typing this so stand back....)
Dedwards likes Midland. And some of their stuff IS about the best you can buy (not their CHEAP stuff, tho).
But........
I like Motorola (just threw up all over myself). The Talkabout T460 or T465 I do like, as much as I can like them, since none of these have external speaker jacks, something that I insist on. I run a mini cable from the speaker jack to the input on the AM/FM/CD player in my car and that way I have 5 inch speakers and 60 watts of audio so I can hear what people are saying at 50mph with the top down.
But if you have the factory sound system, you don't have an AUX jack, so don't worry about it. Now, there is one more thing, the higher-end products (Motorola and others) have headset jacks, so you can use a headset (legal since you only cover one ear) which makes listening easier and with the adjustable mic gain, you can set the mic to low sensitivity and be able to talk on the radio with the top down or music playing and it does not sound too bad to other radios in other cars.
Anyway, you do not need to buy from this place, but here are some models that I like:
2 Radios
ANy questions? KDW4HIM and I have worked in the industry for over 30 years each.
Again, take those things back and get something worth buying, so you enjoy your upcoming vacation.
Mark Christopher
Field Application Engineer Communications R&D
JVCKENWOOD USA Corporation
3970 Johns Creek Court, Suite 100 Suwanee, GA 30024
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