Survival and Emergency Preparedness

When I went riding on the UTV with my brother we had to stop several times to discuss the route. These UTVs are very loud and you have to turn off the engine to be heard. Not to mention having to shout at your passenger to be heard while moving.

So afterward we were discussing ways to cut the noise and still have a way to communicate. That led to talk about using shooting ear muffs and using FRS or GMRS radios with an ear plug under them. I have FRS and GMRS radios and shooting ear muffs.

That led me to dig out my radios and ear muffs, some of which are Walker's amplified noise cancelling muffs. The problem is that both me and my brother wear hearing aids and the ear plugs that come with the radios go in the ear and aren't nearly as good to hear through as the HAs particularly with our hearing loss. That lead to over the ears headsets with boom mics.

I do have a setup with speakers and microphone that fit inside a motorcycle helmet that I use with my GMRS radios when riding the minibikes and ATV but we don't wear helmets on the UTVs. Those work ok.

Started looking for alternatives. Ultimately I found that Walker makes a small FRS radio that clips onto their ear muffs. It plugs into the muffs speakers and has it's own boom mic. You can either use it push to talk or voice activated.

FRS radios through experience with the bubble pack ones gets maybe a 1/4 mile on a good day. They claim a mile but you'll never get that. On the other hand you're talking to someone sitting next to you or maybe a hundred yards in front or behind you in another vehicle so these things should be good. That should be good enough.

Since I already have the muffs I ordered a pair of the radios. My brother had to get muffs and radios. Hopefully it will work out. If it doesn't we can always just use them on my range.

Here are the noise canceling ear muffs.


And the radio


And together...that's not me

Was up at the woods house this weekend and tried out the radios. They work pretty well at least while riding in the UTV.

The good...
-You don't have to turn the ear muffs on to hear the radio. So the muffs muffle the sound of the loud UTV without using it's own noise cancellation circuit.
-The radios work well. They are loud and clear.
-They work with other FRS and GMRS radios*

The Not So Good...
- The radios have a VOX (voice activated) and a PTT (push to talk) button. The loud machine activates the VOX so it's better to use the PTT which is on the radio so you have to hold your hand up to your ear to push the button all the time.
-The ear muffs are uncomfortable to wear in warm weather. It was very warm the day we tested the radios. On the other hand we put the windshield down on another day and rode with them on and the wind kept us cooled off.

*We plan to go off road riding with my other brother in his Bronco in August. He can use just regular FRS/GMRS radios without the earmuffs. His bronco is much quieter than the UTV and ATV.

I may of missed it, did you mention where you got those? I have a couple pairs of Walker earmuffs, but had not seen the mic combo before.

You can get them on Amazon or through most sports outlets.

We paid $29/ea for the radios on Amazon.

For anyone else interested...

I don't remember what I paid for my ear muffs on Amazon a couple years ago but they run from $33-50 ea. The cheapest I've seen them recently is the Teal colored ones for $33. Same muff as the tactical colored ones if that makes any difference. A little spray paint would fix that. I'm debating getting another set of the teal ones just to keep with the UTV as teal ones.

So it looks like the cheapest you can do a set of muffs/radios is $62 each ( Ear muff= $33, Radio =$29) for a $124/pair of each. That's what my brother bought.

They also have packages with both radios and muffs but they tend to be more expensive as a package.

Last weekend we went riding with my brother and his wife. The headset radios work pretty well vehicle to vehicle but not passenger to driver. They signal breaks up sitting side by side.

So we are back to using the GMRS hand helds with ear jacks. Will try that on on ORV Fun Fest ride this coming weekend.