Portable Radio - Buying Guide Download - Spotting Dodgy Two Way Radios

I have had a lot of responses to this Walkie-Talkies blog so I thought it worth updating.

The quick answer:

UHF normally provides better building penetration, and we therefore recommend (as an example) UHF radios to the construction / security / hotel industries. At the date of writing this our top selling UHF Two Way Radios (Walkie Talkie) portable’ are the Kenwood TK3310 (analogue) 80 Channel CB UHF radio and the Tait TP9500 with a 3Watt Speaker! Both sold at Mining Telecommunications, be sure to give us a call on 1800 551 427  or email Sales@MiningTelecoms.com for an outstanding deal.

As Australia’s Trusted Two Way Radio Dealer  we recommend to our clients in the construction industry they use UHF 2-Way Radios in buildings and multi level environments. The same goes for hospitals for critical communications in emergency, wards and underground car parking. For security in malls UHF radios are the way to go. We also provide free Radio Frequency Testing of Basements and all floors to identify black spots.

In Australia UHF radio spectrum is used for land mobile radio systems in commercial, industrial, public safety, and military environments. Also personal radio services use frequencies allocated in the UHF band, although exact frequencies in use differ significantly between countries, in Australia the UHF civilian band operates between 476 -477 MHz.

When you require a walkie talkie for long range that is used in Australia for predominately outside operations, such as mines or taxis services, VHF (Very High Frequency) is much better. There is a “but”, VHF is not very good for going through walls or structures. For scenarios where shorter range is required but better penetration, such as construction sites, hospitals, City Centre Shopping Malls and walkie talkie systems where the majority of users are indoors, then UHF (Ultra High Frequency) is better as it offers far better penetration through structures and buildings.

Our top selling VHF Portable Walkie Talkies are the Kenwood NX3000 (Digital) VHF radio or the Motorola DP4601 (Digital) VHF radio.

VHF and UHF Walkie Talkies can’t talk to each other. The terms UHF and VHF refer to the “wavelength”.This term originates from the early days of radio communication when frequencies were measured by the distance between the peaks of two consecutive cycles of a radio wave instead of the number of cycles per second. Lower frequencies produce a longer wavelength.

VHF spectrum is mainly used in rural areas…a good example is the Australian mining industry.

VHF equipment operates between the frequencies of 30 MHz and 300 MHz. FM radio and television broadcasts operate in this range.

Both UHF and VHF radios are subject to line of sight issues, but VHF much more so. VHF waves do penetrate trees and hills etc, but not as well as UHF does. That said, if a VHF wave and a UHF wave are transmitted over an area without obstructions, then the VHF wave would travel around twice as far.

Since the VHF frequency waves are bigger, then the antenna must be bigger. This is why VHF radios usually have whip antennas, whereas as handheld UHF radios have shorter, often ‘stubby’, antennas.

Hope this helps…please feel free to add to this and we will include it on the MiningTelecoms Blog.

If you have any queries please contact one of our friendly staff…

Tait P25 Two Way Radios
Tait Two Way Radios
UHF CB TK3310 Kenwood Two Way Radios
Kenwood 80 Channel UHF CB Two Way Radio
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