The Rino 520/530 boast 5 watts on the GMRS bands; though mine does
not perform as I would expect - What I cannot tx/rx through that
mountain? ;) I have also been very happy with the battery life of
the stock li/ion batteries. We use ours on the dirt bikes to keep in
touch with each other (and to track each other). IMO a great
package! Now if only one of the HAM mfgrs would step up and give us
all that the Rino offers + HAM bands + TNC...
Great discussion as I am very interested in bridging HAM/Rino -
though work/wife/kids get in the way of that goal most of the time ;)
Greg
KD7UBJ
On Jun 26, 2007, at 3:59 PM, Jason Winningham wrote:
On Jun 26, 2007, at 4:47 PM, Jim Tolbert wrote:
Is the general consensus that I should wait until we can afford
the Kenwood / GPS unit system or go now with one of the Rino
options.
That sort of depends on your situation: is something better than
nothing? Sure the Rino FRS doesn't have the range that a 5 watt
D7 has, but if that's all you can afford and you _really_ need
something...
Also, you don't have to do either/or. If your ICP station has an
APRS rig and a Rino, xastir will happily display data from both
networks, and I'm pretty sure it can relay the Rino data to the
APRS network (but not vice-versa).
Another con to the D7 is the poor battery that comes from the
factory. Not a show stopper, but pretty disappointing.
I personally would ask for money for the D7 configuration. If
they give you less, go from there. With the amount of money
that's hemorrhaging from Homeland Security, surely there's some
dollars for emergency comms somewhere...
-Jason
kg4wsv
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