"Dave or Debby" wrote in
:

In the past, one bought a base when he wanted to talk from the house.
Mobiles were used from cars. Walki-Talkies (that's HAND HELDS for you
YUPPIES and Hamsters) were used for people that WALKED AROUND the
block OR in the woods OR for camping. NONE of them ever switched
jurisdictions. NO ONE would of ever think of using a base when
walking around, OR a WALKI TALKIE in the car (unless you were under 15
just experimenting). Because of the advent of SMT technology for the
Hambos, the "walki-talki" has DIED and now EVERYTHING has got to be
HAND HELD ! Hence the hand held CB for the car, which is something
that should NEVER BE even thought of ! Just POKE that antenna in the
passengers eye while driving and see what I'm talking about!!!!
Dave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I thought I'd weigh in on this one.

A handheld is perfectly fine for use in the car. Many are capable of
using an external antenna and microphone. With these capabilities, the
handheld starts to shine a bit. They're still 4 watt radios, and can be
mounted anywhere - which is great in things like small trucks where it
can be tricky to find a suitable mounting location.

One cool solution might be to fabricate some sort of a permanant mount
similar to those used to hold cell phones in the car. You could have the
power and antenna lines located permantently near the mount. In fact, you
could do the same in the house. Now you have _one_ radio that's usable
whether at home, in the car, or out walking around.

I do realize that handhelds don't have all the features of their larger
counterparts. In fact, I don't own one (at least I don't think I do, I'll
have to look around). Still, I also know that almost all of the
"features" on my Galaxy remain largely unused. Yes, I know what they all
do, don't lecture me. I'll leave the finer points of radio operation to
another thread. Though I'm an admitted knob-thumber, I really only use
the volume and squelch reguarly. The primary reason I bought that radio
was because it was pretty damn cool looking for $175. Like, get this: it
has a pot to adjust the dimmer - for those of us who might want it "kind
of dim" as opposed to really dim or really bright. Heh.

The point is, a handheld is more than capable of wearing many hats. I
don't see the rationale behind pigeon-holing it into a defined role. If
you're like me and you've got money to burn on radio gear...then
nevermind =-)


--

Alan Strawinski

http://alan.strawinski.net