Rapid Radios, etc.

Anyone have any experience with them?

We are thinking about getting a set of them for us and the kids to communicate. Might be a good alternative to getting them a cell phone. Not something that we are ready to do right now, but I'm starting to research our options.

I know this might be a tech question that folks would send me to the Nerdery for, but the OB knows stuff. From what I understand they operate the same as the Nextel phones used to.

Following this as we have been thinking about doing the same with the kids and bonus for when we're hunting.

In. We have been discussing this as well. Might have to go the Sat Phone route here though.

We looked at a company called weavix to replace our work radio system. Look very similar to rapid radios, but marketed more to companies. The rep/sales person wanted us to run them off wifi with cell as the backup. I'm in a chemical plant and we don't have good wifi through the whole plant. We would have had to run them with only cell signal, which it was capable of just not how this company typically set them up. We got a couple to demos and the reception was good over cell signal, but didn't meet some of our needs. Had some really cool features and capabilities though.

Why would you get LTE radios when you can just buy LTE cell phone? Seems a lot of hassle to go through to accomplish a goal so just trying to get a handle on the needs.

Tidradio H3 is 30 bucks a pop and you can get a GMRS license for 30 that is good for the whole family. My little 5 watt radios reach out to repeaters and simplex stations up to 12 miles away.

I keep them for cell outages which for whatever reason are more frequent where I am than I like. Nothing like having 5G 5 bars of service one day and SOS mode the next.

iPhone will send messsages via satellite though so the radio thing again might not be that practical.

I see. So what's the intended use? Something for everyday use or is this more specific use like hunting or amusement parks, etc?

One thing to keep in mind and think about is the physical size of a radio and the practical usage of it. It needs to be on and audible for the user to know they are being called in most cases. Are the kids going to do that? Or are they going to turn them down or off or let the battery die? Are they going to tote them around in their hip or shoved in a backpack? Just things to consider. I love radios. I think it's cool to be able to talk to someone 40 miles away with repeaters. My kids think I'm a huge nerd….in fact they call them my nerd radios. So….keep that in mind as well before you give these out to the kids.

tsuag10 said:

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From what I understand, the LTE radios are either a one time cost or $50 per year. Cell phones require a monthly plan unless there's other options I'm not aware of. I like the idea of the regular radios. Might have to look into that.

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Prepaid sims is what i used for my deer camp phone. Think i paid $10 per 4 months of time with rollover of any unused text/mins. This was not for calling your boo and having a 3hr call, just for quick calls/texts for meet ups, animal activity etc. Should work great if you have cell access for it there and are using it for similar activity. Any old android/iPhone worked for it. Only give 50MB (not gigs) of data so no real data connection for them after basically loading like 1 webpage if they tried to get online. Its meant for MMS messages, not browsing.
https://www.pagepluscellular.com/refill/
Pay-As-You-Go Plans

https://tincan.kids/

EliteElectric said:

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https://tincan.kids/

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We got one for my son

He looooves it!