Can You Hear Me Now? Breaker Breaker 1..9.....

For this post, I would like to discuss keeping in touch with the family while camping.  Many people in the good old days, used string and two soup cans or a CB walkie-talkie to keep in touch with family members during camping.  Most of the campers in the olden time and even RVers today, nothing was or is used to stay in touch.  While some may believe that a cell phone is good enough, and it may be traveling down the interstate, in a campground in the wilderness or at the nearby lake you may find that the good old cell phone does not work, even a little.   You may find that the carrier you have is the wrong carrier for good service in the area that you are in and that the other guy would have been a better choice.  Whatever the case, today we have very small radios called FRS/GMRS that will last a long time on batteries, give you several miles of range, be quiet and can even be set up for "selective call" so only your family members will hear you when you call them in for lunch or are backing up the rig.  RVers who are backpackers take note, these little radios can have weather radios and GPS built-in as well.








Let's take a look at a few [shown below] and discuss their features and benefits in more detail.

Motorola Model MD200R

Shown above are some Basic FRS radios.  They come as a pair when you buy them and have the following feature set.  The units come with rechargeable batteries, two belt clips, charging cable, AC adapter and have a range of 20 miles over flat and open terrain.  They offer a 12hr battery life.  As you can see the unit does not offer a lot of features but it works and could be used when backing the RV into that tight site, right next to the lake.



Motorola MH230

Above is shown a step-up model of an FRS/GMRS radio.  It can run on alkaline batteries for up to 10hrs or 8hrs on rechargeable batteries.  This model from Motorola includes 11 weather channels, 22 talk channels, and each channel has 121 privacy codes, (selective call)  for privacy.  The range is 23 miles over flat and open terrain.  It comes with belt clips and 1 dual drop-in charger to charge the pair of radios at the same time to save you time.  Use one as a base station at the RV and give the other one to whoever you want to keep track of.  Additional units can be purchased so everyone who needs one has one.  This unit would be great for a fisherman to keep in touch while out in the boat on the lake.

Garmin Rino 650 with GPS & FRS



 Calling all Backpacking RVers out there.  Here is an FRS/GMRS radio that has a built-in GPS or a GPS that has a built-in FRS/GMRS radio.  This unit is not low cost, but it does show that just about any need for communications while RVing can be met with an FRS/GMRS radio.  For the fun of it here are some of the features of this radio.  The radio has a 2.6-inch color touchscreen that is glove friendly.  A high sensitivity GPS receiver, a rugged waterproof case. Runs 18hrs on a set of batteries, and has a list of accessories as long as your arm. 

While most of us will want a lower cost unit you need not suffer from little to no features.  Range, the number of channels, the privacy feature (selective call), and battery life are the important ones to watch out for.

Safety and peace of mind make the weekend RV getaway fun and exciting for the whole family and the ability to stay in touch with all members of the camping party does that for me and my family.









Until next time.  Over and Out?

Severe Weather!! -- It Happens

When you are asleep do you worry about this,

or maybe this

or even this?

 Well I did!!



At the beginning of camping season and at the end of camping season are the most dangerous times for storms expected, or not.  And if predictions are correct and this is an El Niño year then things could get really bad or not. 

What  is an El Niño?  El Niño is an ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon that is linked to the periodic warming of waters across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. This warming is part of the natural climate system. On average, an El Niño event occurs every 2 to 7 years and typically lasts about 9 to 18 months. 

So why should you worry or even be concerned about an El Niño ?  During periods of El Niño  warm water builds up off the South American coast and this sends more than the normal waves of moisture into the US.  These waves of moisture can, and do cause more storms, some of which are more severe than storms in a non-El Niño year.  This translates into more severe thunderstorms and more than normal tornado's

While you can use your phone most of the time for weather alerts and weather radar, when you are out camping your phone may not get a signal or changing weather conditions may suddenly make your phone not work.  And the basement of a 5er is not a safe place to be.  So what is a person to do?

During the check-in process to get your RV site, you should ask, where do we go in case of severe weather and do you have a method of alerting the campground of approaching bad weather?

In most cases the park will have a severe weather location, like a cement block bath house or  underground facilities.  But most will not have a warning system.  It is left up to you to know when bad weather is approaching and it is time to take cover.

So now your phone has no bars and the park has no way to tell you that a large thunderstorm is approaching your RV site.  Now, what are you going to do to keep you and your family safe?  Buy a weather radio with built-in weather alert.  Our government built, many years ago, a National Alert System to let citizens know about disasters before they happen.  That was the old weather radio that went off (with its built-in siren) all the time for just about any reason (some good, mostly bad).  After a lot of citizen complaints over many years, a new system of alerting people was developed by the government that had a better built-in method of stopping false alerts and added text messages to each alerts displayed on a screen on the new generation of weather radios.

Midland WR120EZ NOAA Weather Alert All Hazard Public Alert Certified Radio with SAME

RadioShack SAME Weather Radio 12-991

I could go into detail on how this type of radio works but this is not a DIY Blog. This type of radio can be programed simply, thanks to SAME(Specific Area Message Encoding) technology you will only receive alerts for the locations that you have entered into the radio and you won't have to worry about false triggers or deal with an event that has nothing to do with your area. Also some weather radios like the ones pictured (above and below) you can customize some of the alert types, so it only alerts you to the alert types that you have selected.  For example, if the National Weather Service issues a thunderstorm watch and you have only thunderstorm warning selected. The radio wont alert you unless a  thunderstorm warning alert is sent. Most of these radios have battery back-up and you can attach your HDTV antenna to them to extend the pick-up range of this type of weather radio. You should never leave home to go camping with out one of these special SAME radios.

RadioShack 7-Channel Handheld Weather Radio with SAME

La Crosse 810-805 NOAA/AM/FM Weather RED Alert Super Sport Radio with Flashlight

Here are two that operate on just batteries and can be carried on the hiking trail or just outside around the campground.

No matter which one you choose like a smoke detector or gas detector your RV is not complete and you are not fully protected nor safe until you have at least one WEATHER RADIO.





Until Next Time