Hi all,

I am moving from VaBch, VA to Utah soon and have an obvious "concrete jungle" mentality regarding vehicle to vehicle communications as Nextel's walkie talkie functions works great here.
I wonder if cell coverage is near non-existant in the UT/CO/AZ area or perhaps has Nextel not penetrated these areas as well as they have here?

Thanx for all the great info here !

John

 

I live in San diego, and the nextel service in the eastern part of the county is horrible. It continuosly drops you and loses signal.

I can't imagine it being better in BFE,Utah than it is in Suburban SoCal.

 

I have Nextel and I get cut off all the time, if your not near a populated area, you will lose connection. CB is good, but HAM is superior......

 

if your looking for car to car communication, assuming you will be following each other cb would work fine. cb have a range up about ~4-5 miles depending on the terrain. if you are going to behind one another cheap motorola radios would work too. CB is going to be a better bet, IMO

 

Thanx guys.......I have come to the same conclusion too.

Appreciate the ideas !

John

 

Nextel isn't the best, but I use it simply because of the reliability I've experienced with the iDEN Direct Connect. After the hurricane, *all* cell phone communication was screwed up over the *entire* state because of high number of users in normally low populated areas. The only means of communication we had was the Nextel Direct Connect. It uses a repeater at the top of the tower rather than a circuit that can be disrupted or "full."

I know this doesn't relate much to your question, but I thought I'd share why I use them.

BTW, some Nextel phones have an "off network" feature called Direct Talk that allows your phone to function as an FRS radio. For instance, a friend and I travel in separate cars using DC. When we get in BFE and the signal runs out, we switch to Direct Talk and continue talking, but are now limited to several miles range.