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Radio Communications on a budget
Low budget, small crew filmmakers need instant communications around the set. The usual route is to rent commercial handheld walkie-talkies from a (motion picture) provider. But the rental cost of radios and (replacement) insurance can add up quickly, and may become a burden to student filmmakers with relatively simple needs.
Let’s briefly discuss your radio communication options.
Commercial (rental) WT’s are assigned specific UHF frequency bands that have been specially licensed to the studios or equipment providers. These radios are typically 5 watts in power, and have a realistic range of a couple miles in open terrain. Their range in dense cities and hilly or mountainous terrain will be less. These radios are expensive to purchase, which makes them expensive to rent as well as costly to replace when you lose them. Professional productions use lots of them; they are always part of the budget.
HAM radios (sometimes marketed as “dual band” radios on the internet) require a special FCC license (written exam required) and operate on radio frequencies known as the “Amateur Bands.” These bands are radio frequencies allocated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for use by ham radio operators internationally. HAM radios come in all shapes and sizes, from low powered compact WT’s to (more powerful) mobile and fixed base stations. Unless every one of your crew members is a licensed HAM operator, do not purchase nor rent these radios.
Citizens Band (CB) radios are pretty useless. Maybe back in the 70’s, Burt Reynolds and his “trucker good buddies” were able to clearly converse from 18 wheeler to 18 wheeler over great distances, but that was a myth made possible by Hollywood sound editing. We have stopped using CB in our jeep clubs because all you hear over the speaker is very loud static and annoying verbal howling/vocalizations from a few bullies with illegal high powered transmitters who think that they can abuse the airwaves for fun and block everyone else’s access.
The only advantage to CB is that there are 40 programmed channels; so that large numbers of different groups (such as off road caravans or multiple video crews) can each have their own channel. But in practice, it is almost impossible to find “clean” channels that aren’t being overwhelmed by bad operators.
FRS or Family Radio Service are those very inexpensive units often found in sporting goods and general merchandise stores. Usually they are packaged in multi-packs of 2 to 6 units. They are intended for small groups of family & friends to keep in touch at the park. Their maximum power per the FCC cannot exceed 0.5 watts, but most of the cheap sets barely hit 0.1 or 0.2 watts! Nope. You don’t want these.
GMRS, or General Mobile Radio Service, is a two-way radio service in the United States that is intended for personal use in general (amateur/public) communications. It has 22 channels, and shares some channels (8-14) with FRS, or Family Radio Service, but it offers more power, range, and versatility than the lower power (0.5 watt) FRS radios. GMRS radios are available in portable handheld models at up to 5 watts of power and mobile/base station models at up to 50 watts of power.
Very good handheld 5 watt units can be found on Amazon and other online suppliers for around $35-60; and once in a while they will advertise a 4-pack for around $100.
But make sure that they are listed as GMRS, FCC approved. There are a lot of imported “dual band” units that will hear restricted or HAM frequencies, but cannot legally transmit on them, and don’t always work well (unless you know how to program them) on traditional GMRS.
Officially, to use GMRS radios, you will need to purchase a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The license is relatively inexpensive ($35) and covers an entire family for an entire decade.
Although this is not legal advice: if one person in your small group has a GMRS license and you stay within your allotted wattage (5 watts for a handheld, up to 50 watts for a mobile) – it is extremely unlikely that the FCC will hit you with a fine. They are more concerned with ultra high powered transmitters, illegal repeaters, and blatant commercial use of the public airwaves. Your puny 5 watt units won’t make a ripple outside of a few hundred yards. But LEGALLY, you all are supposed to be licensed, unless you are family members.
Unlike HAM licenses, the GMRS license does not require any technical tests; just an online form and payment.
When shopping for GMRS WT’s (also referred to as HH handhelds), be aware of the power limitations assigned to the total of 22 channels. Channels 1-7 are legal for up to 5 watts, which equates to a few hundred yards. As previously mentioned, channels 8-14 overlap and are fully compatible with FRS; but the GMRS radios are limited to 0.5 watts in these channels. GMRS 15-22 may transmit up to 50 watts, and include repeater frequencies that will greatly extend your range (or cause you interference).
Note that to utilize repeater services, you have to know the frequencies of the repeater stations and arrange permissions along with special programming of your radios. (Simply put, forget about using the repeaters unless you want to get technical.)
If you use your WT’s (HH’s) which are 5 watt, then they will still be 5 watt on 1-7 and 14-22; but are programmed to be only 0.5 watt on the FRS channels 8-14. Some of the higher powered mobile base stations will only function on 15-22; and might even be completely blocked from accessing 8-14 or even 1-7. Pay close attention to the product specs to make sure that your mobile base radio will automatically limit itself to the FCC restrictions, rather than block out the lower power channels.
Do not be fooled by marketing that claims to have hundreds of channels! What they are referring to is the ability to program (or somehow select pre-programmed) channels in the 1-22 GMRS range that have been paired with PL (aka private listening) tone squelch. When a radio is programmed to pair a PL tone to the transmission, what it essentially means is that YOUR RADIO will only HEAR other radio transmissions paired with the same code. So if someone in your group transmits on a radio that was not paired, you will not hear their radio. But they can still hear your radio, so it is not PRIVACY. It only restricts you from hearing other people; but other people can still hear you.
Programming your radios with a PL code makes sense if you are a small crew and you own all of the radios. However, if your people tend to bring their own radios (such as at an event), then it is a better practice to not utilize PL codes since you cannot guarantee that everyone in the group knows how to correctly program your code.
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3 Replies
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Cool beans Fred! I am not going to NAB. I am in the weeds right now with work. Keep me updated and thank you for your posts in the community. That really helps!
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Thank you Fred for telling us about these devices! 😀
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When I was 16 years old my stepdad had a CB radio and when he was gone I would get on it. 🙂
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