I can’t speak to how common it is, but a few years ago I was camping in a rural part of PA, I brought my baofeng with me and loaded it up with the local repeaters before I went.
And when I was looking them up I was a little shocked to find that pretty much all of their emergency services were using pretty basic 2m or 70cm radios. Outside of the frequencies allocated for amateur use but still within the capabilities of most amateur radios.
Surely I thought I must be missing something, there must be some kind of encryption or something, but no, when I tuned to those frequencies I could hear all of their communications with my little $30 glorified walkie talkie.
I didn’t try to key up on them, because that would be illegal, but I don’t see any reason I couldn’t have if I really wanted to.
I know that in the french alps we can reach the mountain police through VHF if needed, and that during heli-rescue they give a call on the free-flight frequency to let paraglider know that they are coming. but I am pretty sure that they have their own network too, and that VHF is a way to call them when you have no mobile phone coverage
I can’t speak to how common it is, but a few years ago I was camping in a rural part of PA, I brought my baofeng with me and loaded it up with the local repeaters before I went.
And when I was looking them up I was a little shocked to find that pretty much all of their emergency services were using pretty basic 2m or 70cm radios. Outside of the frequencies allocated for amateur use but still within the capabilities of most amateur radios.
Surely I thought I must be missing something, there must be some kind of encryption or something, but no, when I tuned to those frequencies I could hear all of their communications with my little $30 glorified walkie talkie.
I didn’t try to key up on them, because that would be illegal, but I don’t see any reason I couldn’t have if I really wanted to.
Interesting,
I know that in the french alps we can reach the mountain police through VHF if needed, and that during heli-rescue they give a call on the free-flight frequency to let paraglider know that they are coming. but I am pretty sure that they have their own network too, and that VHF is a way to call them when you have no mobile phone coverage
There’s definitely a difference between rural and urban requirements.
Analogue goes further, and can tolerate more interference.
Open channels allow others to jump on quickly. E.g. a hunter/hiker listening in, can jump in with critical information on a search and rescue.
Lower density means less people to mess with channels, and generally better radio etiquette.
Open radios are cheaper, and already have the required infrastructure.
Basically, it’s not worth the cost/effort to upgrade. It also provides some extra benefits.