Rapid Radios is a new company that’s spending big bucks on advertising promoting their product. They advertise them as “walkie-talkies” with unlimited range (always with an asterisk), and that will work when your cell phone may not.
As you might imagine, all that advertising isn’t cheap and the units sell for as much as $400 per “radio.” Plus potentially an additional $50 per year after the first year in connection fees. Ouch.
Yes, they advertise “$0 monthly fees” but after the first year, you get whacked with a $50 annual fee.
What are they? First, traditional “walkie talkie radios” these aren’t. They rely on cell towers to communicate. And in emergencies, if the cellular services or the Internet are down or degraded, your Rapid Radio communications likely face similar service issues.
If you recall Nextel’s annoying “Direct Connect” feature from the 1990s, Rapid Radios use PoC – or Push-to-talk over Cellular to communicate. A more technical explanation: It uses the narrowband LTE part of the cellular bands and still requires a great deal of complex infrastructure working perfectly in order to communicate with fellow Rapid Radio users. If any aspect of that infrastructure fails or gets overloaded, you’re likely SOL to reach your buddies with their crazy expensive Rapid Radios.
My advice: take a pass and save a bundle.
Pro-tip: If you want a “Rapid Radio”-like feature, download and install Zello on your smartphone. For $8 per month per user (the first two weeks are free), you’ll get essentially the same functions and features without the $400 price tag, subsequent annual fees and the second piece of gear to lug around.
Slick talking salesmen wanting a big commission aren’t going to like my advice on RRs and Zello, but I work for you, not them. And my recommendations, unlike theirs, aren’t for sale.
If you’re dying to burn $400 for emergency communications, here’s my advice… In order of priority if you are on a tight budget.
Buy 4 Baofeng UV-5R hand-held radios. They currently sell for about $36 per pair to get two radios, two high cap batteries, antennas (including the 18″ whip for maximum range), programming cable and more. Here’s a link to one with a programming cable.
Get a magnetic mount mobile antenna to hook to your HT. I like this one from Nagoya. It’s $35. Why do you need an external antenna? Because your car’s metal body severely impinges on the signal getting out. Inside the car, your range will be 2ish miles on a good day. With the external antenna, you can get closer to 5 radio to radio and as much as 10-15 for repeaters, depending on terrain.
If you want to get one for you and one for the spouse, but don’t want to spend $35 for a single one, and you’re willing to go with the “BINGFU” brand, well, here ya go. $15. I would think it has to be better than the world’s best antenna inside the car.
To maximize your range to repeaters, you’re going to need a mobile radio. Retevis makes a great entry-level mobile radio the RT-95. (Anytone has a clone for a few dollars less.) $139. Comes with an antenna but the antenna isn’t top tier.
Get the best GMRS antenna for your car, the Midland – MXTA26. $60 and worth twice that. It gets easily double the effective range of the mobile mag-mount antenna that comes with the Retevis mobile radio. Range is important folks. The Retevis antenna gets mayyybe 20 miles of range for one repeater I frequent. The Midland gets over 50. You do the math. Which do you want in an emergency?
Follow up, you’ll want the mag mount for that Midland. $30.
Running that through my public math head:
4 radios: 80 with tax
External mag-mount antennas for walkie-talkies x2 $80 with tax
Mobile radio: $150 with tax
Better mobile antenna with mount $100
$410.
If you double up on mobile radios, you can skip the walkie-talkie mag-mount antennas and you’re looking at a little over $500… or way less than two Rapid Radios at normal prices ($300-400 each)… and no getting whacked with $100/year cellular access fee each year after the first year.
Folks, this is a no-brainer.