Radios

Talk on 10-10

Members of the Utah County Birders frequently hold birding excursions in multi-car groups, making reliable communications highly desirable. To meet this need, many club members have purchased FRS (Family Radio Service) radios.

FRS Radios are ideally suited for auto-to-auto travel because they are small, easy to use and have good voice clarity for about 2 miles. The radios have 14 channels (frequencies), each with 38 'Talk Groups'. FRS radios do not require licenses to operate and the controls are easily learned.

All FRS radios should be able to communicate one with another, but the Utah County Birders selected the Kenwood FreeTalk as the 'approved' radio so that a person's knowledge would be useful to the entire group. Channel 10, Talk Group 10 was selected as the standard communications channel. 10-10 is easy to remember and easy to select on the radios. Generally, the radios are set up once then the keyboard is locked so it would not be inadvertently knocked to a different frequency.

We would like to suggest that FRS radios and frequency 10-10 be the communications standard for birding excursions for all of Utah. When you see a birding group, hail them on 10-10, if they are Utah County Birders you will receive a cheery response back.

Here's a source from the internet that has good information and a pretty good price. There are cheaper ones advertised, but this source has been used and seems reliable. You can do a search using "Family Radio Service" and get plenty of information and other place to buy one from. "Bill's 2 Way"