Calling a radio!

[paton400]

Hi, can someone please help me with this...

I recently bought 4 radios - FDC FD-450 UHF CB radio 410-480Mhz


What I hope to be able to do is just as you would expect to happen, talk on one radio and then immediately and automatically the other 3 radios will hear me...

But when need be, I would like to be able to send a 'Call' directly to ONE of the radios without the other two listening. The radio that I am calling needs to answer the call before we can talk.

When I want ALL radios to hear, I don't want the other users to have to 'Answer". Just automatically start listening like normal radios.

Is this possible with these radios? If so what is it called and how to I program it? I was able to do exactly this with some sort of Motorola radio when I worked in an airport. To call another radio I had to punch in that particular radios 3 digit code, then call. Then the other radio would ring, like a phone.

 

[Rt169Radio]

Well first of all where do you live? In the U.S.A those radios transmit on the UHF portion of the U.S amateur band,but I think in aussie land UHF is their CB band.

Second I haven't heard of any CB radios being able to make a "call" to another CB radio.

And last of all I don't think those radio are capability to make the kind of "call" options you want.

 

[mmckenna]

They sell those on e-Bay out of Hong Kong. While advertised as a "CB" radio, that is sort of a misnomer, depending on what part of the world you live in.

There are UHF CB bands in Australia and a few other Far East countries. MIght be more, but the US and Canada isn't one of them.

Not sure where the OP lives, but that would have a lot of bearing on this.

IF the radios are properly type accepted by the FCC for part 95, they could be used under GMRS rules.
IF the radios don't have a real FCC certification, then they are technically illegal for use in the US.

If legal, (or not, your choice) they could be programmed for the GMRS channels, if the OP is in the US. You would, of course, need to get a valid GMRS license for each family using the radios.

For a selective calling feature, you could do that with PL tones and scan. You could set all radios up with a common PL tone on one channel for being able to communicate to all radios. You would then need to set up channels in each radio with different PL's for each of the other radios. There are other ways to do this, but the e-bay add is vague on exactly what features this radio has.

The radio only appears to do wide FM, so technically it shouldn't have been able to receive FCC certifications.

But, if the OP is in another country, then the local rules will apply.

 

[16b]

The OP isn't really asking about rules, but of course since this is radioreference, no topic is safe from the kilocycle cops.

Anyhow, to the OP: the radios you mention will not be able to call each other as you describe. If you really need that feature, and cell phones won't work for you, then you should probably look into the Motorola DTR550 or DTR650 models; they are digital and operate on 900MHz. These radios are not cheap, however. I believe that there at least used to be another company that made similar radios that cost less, but the name escapes me. There are also some Nextel phones that had a feature (DirectTalk?) that allowed off-network communications (i.e., without a phone contract), but again, I don't remember the models off the top of my head.

If you want to use the radios normally (i.e., everyone hears everybody else), then all you need to do is put them on the same frequency.

 

[nd5y]

TI believe that there at least used to be another company that made similar radios that cost less, but the name escapes me.

TriSquare - 2-way Radio - Beyond FRS Beyond GMRS eXRS (TM) eXtreme Radio Service

 

[16b]

TriSquare - 2-way Radio - Beyond FRS Beyond GMRS eXRS (TM) eXtreme Radio Service

Those are the ones; thanks for finding them! For some reason I thought they were digital, but after reading the majority of a very amusing thread, it sounds like they're not. Still, given the price of these compared to the DTR radios, they might suit the OP's needs.

 

[paton400]

thank for your help. Its for use in Australia.

So why does the radio have a 'phone style' keypad on the front?