I have two sets of the Motorola walkie talkies. I bought the first set when my son and I went on a vacation summer of ..... 1999? 2000? Anyway, it was a 10 day vacation, and we drove out to visit a friend of mine in Minnesota (we live in North Carolina). We spent a lot of time planning the trip, including certain purchases that we wanted to make. While we were in Minnesota, we visited a big Cabela's store and that's where we bought a set of Motorola Talkabout 250's. These have 14 channels on the FRS band and 38 privacy sub-codes. They run on 3 AA batteries. The range *can* be 2 miles if the terrain is fairly flat. We have used them in the mountains of West Virginia, and sometimes we get less than a mile there.
Remember, this was 3 or 4 years ago. We bought a number of accessories (ear buds and throat mikes, carrying cases, etc) for the talkies, and the bill for them was a bit over $200.
Like Sandman says, they do work great for mobile caravaning, and we have used them a *lot* for that.
Just this past summer, my wife and I had rented a rather large beach house, and we ended up taking a number of people with us, and we were going to have a 4 car caravan to the beach. My wife *demanded* that I get a second set of W-T's so that everyone would have a radio on the trip over to the beach. I grudgingly (yeah, right...) carried out her instructions.
And.... I lucked out. Radio Shack happened to have a great sale on a pair of Motorola 5720s. For $59.99 plus tax, I got the two radios, complete with belt clips, nicad battery packs, and a charger. These have 22 channels - 7 on FRS, 7 on FRS/GMRS, and 8 GMRS. It also has the 38 subcodes for all the channels. The range on the FRS only channels is again about the 2 miles. The range on the FRS/GMRS or the GMRS channels is about 5 miles. Use of the GMRS channels requires an FCC license, but you can apply for that online. I don't remember the cost ($50, $100?) but I do remember that I got the license in about a week. Again, your range on the GMRS channels will vary according to terrain, but it is definitely farther than the FRS. My son and I have tested this, by using FRS channels and intentionally going out of range, then switching to a GMRS channel and reestablishing communication. The old set and the new set work fine together on the common FRS channels.
If I was going to buy a pair today, I think I would go for the 5920 model, which has 7 FRS, 7 FRS/GMRS, 8 GMRS channels, but it has NINETY-NINE privacy sub-codes. At Best Buy, the current price for the 5720 model is $69.99, and for the 5920 model it is $79.99.
These radios are VERY HANDY at rocket launches. Mark Brown has a set, I always bring all of mine, and we use them quite a bit.
