Originally Posted by
Redthies
As West said, Family Radio Service. You can (like I do) operate your vhf on those frequencies (and GMRS), and while still technically being illegal, you’re very unlikely to be caught doing it. Anyone can buy a pair of the Cobra or Uniden or Motorola Talkabouts for $100 at Canadian Tire and use them unlicensed. The difference is that mine are programable, and are higher power. Again, not going to be much of an issue on those freqs, but being programable, I can also set them to RR channels and monitor for traffic.
If I am going to travel on a RR, I will listen to the channel used on that road for a good 5-10 mins before driving on it to see if it is active. I don’t transmit my movements, but will know where others on the road are, and pull off in a safe spot and wait for trucks coming downhill to pass. Without fail, every time I’ve done that, the downhill vehicle has called out “truck uphill at X km, no radio”. I hear them doing it for me, and proceed. Could I call myself up at the KM markers? Sure. But I prefer to stay off their working frequency if I can. I smile and wave and stay out of their way. You never know when your unauthorized chatter is going to rub someone the wrong way and have them go out of their way to make life hard on you.
I once was going uphill loaded in my tractor with a 50’ x 24” steel tower tube strapped on my 20’ deck. There was 30’ hanging off the back, and on some of the hills, it was dragging on the road. If I stopped, I would likely not get started again (SUPER steep terrain), and could not back up to a flat section due to the tube digging in the road. Another contractor let one of their crew cabs run to the valley with no radio. I was calling out going uphill, and she had no idea I was coming. We met on a hairpin corner. She threw it in reverse and punched it, but the winches on the side of my deck cut that Chevy along the side from front to back. Right through the fender outer, door skin etc. I kept going. She was fine, and was found at fault by the “owner” of the road. This was on a mountain road closed to the public, and a bit of a “Wild West” type of thing. She didn’t need to call out (although it was protocol), just needed to know I was coming and wait at pullouts.
The take away is, you don’t need to fill the airwaves and announce yourself and your quasi legal radio to the world, just monitor the channel before you start up or down, and pull off in a safe spot when you are within a km of other traffic. Obviously if it is a true life or death scenario, then use the radio and deal with any fallout later.