Letter Re: Portable Two-Way Radio Recommendations

Sir,
Could you or your readers recommend any good two-way re-chargeable hand-held radios that are sold at outdoor places such as Cabela’s?
I’m particularly looking for a model that I could use while at University classes while my wife is one mile away at our apartment.
Thanks,.- Chad

JWR Replies: Reliable communication with a one mile range in a cluttered environment–as I assume yours is, if the city is large enough to host a university–is “iffy” for the typical FRS and GMRS hand-held transceivers on the consumer market. My preference is for the MURS band hand-helds. Not only will you get better range, but you will also be operating in a less commonly used frequency band. This will give you marginally better communications security. (Although, of course no radio transmission should be considered 100% “secure.”) I recommend the MURS Radios company (one of our advertisers). as a reputable source of transceivers. They also do custom frequency programming, and sell both accessories and MURS-compatible perimeter intrusion detection systems.