Walky/Talky or PMR Europe ONLY

Cheap, very compact, 12 volt charger, very convenient but range only 4 km "Line- of-Sight"

http://www.licencefree.com/
http://www.transmission1.co.uk/index.ph ... icle&sid=6

Thanks for that link.
4 km is not enough coverage. Lets say 10 cars in 1 or 2 groups. The first car and last car may be more than 4 clicks apart. Trees and hills will greatly reduce the range. Do these to way radios have they own band or do they ''jump on'' to the local band. I simply have no idea.

Cb radio or walkie talkies can be operating on the same frekvenses.There are several frekvences that can be used, so we will have to agree on the system that we want to use.
Pmr446 is a normal system used in europe, if we are going to use handhelds the range will probaly be about 3 to 10 kilometers depending on the device, and the landscape.
The handheld devices will usually have less channels than a device for car installation.
We can agree on bringing bigger devices but we will risk getting it talken by the customs the it is a loss of money and we have no comunication.

When we entered Morocco through Ceuta, there was no interest whatsoever in the cars or their contents. Merely in your wallets and their contents.

The border formalities consist of a load of queueing - to change money, to buy insurance, to get this stamped, to get that stamped.

The difference between a PMR (walkie-talkie) and a CB (citizens' band) is the frequency. PMRs are on 446 MHz and CBs are on 27 MHz, within each of these frequencies both radio systems use a selection of user-selectable bands and work in the same way. The difference in frequencies accounts partly for the increased range of the CB, also the increased power of a car-based CB and the much longer antenna.

BUT: In Morocco CB Radios are illegal and you risk confiscation or worse if the authorities take exception. PMR radios however are fine, see HERE. No doubt if they don't look in your car you can get away with a CB, but a confiscated CB is far less use than a shorter range PMR.

Thanks for your informations. We certainly don't want to do anything illegal so I suggest we settle on handheld walkie talkies. Would it matter if they are bought in different parts of Europe or do we need to buy the lot at the same place?

Hiya, no walkies talkies (or talkie-walkies over here) are all on the same PMR frequencies around 446Mhz. Within that they have a bunch of channels but will all tune in and communicate with each other just fine. After that it's just down to price and choice, some have added features like hands-free kits, car chargers etc, most work on AA batteries so they're easy enough to buy fresh, or recharge. You can sometimes get good deals for multibuys online, might be a great way for everyone to have a cheap walkie-talkie or two.

In my old Mini days we used them for trips round Brittany, and in general they'd carry a couple of kilometres. Our general rule was to assign a position number for each car in the convoy, the idea being that you made sure you could contact the car in front and the car behind you at all times. This way you could pass a message up the line very quickly, meaning you could get a message to a lead car 30 to 40 kms ahead. But then that was Brittany, hardly life-threatening, expect in the rain with those dodgy Lucas electrics.

I've asked a biking friend who goes out to Morocco a fair amount to try and get hold of cellphone coverage maps. Not a huge use in the remoter mountainous parts maybe, but she's said she's been very surprised how well and how often her mobile would work over there. I believe it's because the telecoms companies find it far cheaper to put up masts than to run telephone lines, bit depressing really, fewer and fwer places are out of touch.

I have spoken to a couple of companies selling CB/ PMR/ walkies a good choise could be this one
http://www.midtcom.dk/shop/lmr-uhf-tyt-1143p.html

It can easyly be programmed via a computer to use all kinds of channels and the transmission power can be increased from the 0,5 W that is maximum allowed in Denmark to 4 W.
It can be connected to an exterior antenna but most likely we wont need that.

The price in Denmark is just about 130 140 euro.

Ulrik