Comms

Errr.... no offence but did you really mean to ask that question on this forum??? This is WW2 Airsoft so within a squad it should be hand signals and shouting and thats it!!! Maybe a whistle if you want go "high-tech"

Also, where are you. That really makes a difference to what radio stuff you can use.
I do agree that there is no place for individual walkie talkies in WW2 airsoft. Perhaps at command level so there is a chance units might meet.

Good for a blatfest

Not WW2

Hi matey, we use 4watt contract radios as they are clear and reliable. We put them in radio satchels and use radio handsets to make them look like field radios but only dish them out to platoon sized groups. As a few of the guys have indicated try to keep the radions to a minimum. if your team is a reasonable size then maybe 2 feild radios would be good for each platoon. Otherwise you'll get a a radio pack at most events if its a battle based game.

At Jeds the CIA mob had cool looking radios and used PMR which were shite but actually realy realistic so maybe a cheaper option would be to go with PMR and dress them up. to be fair the site was huge and any PMR would have struggled.

hope this helps bud.

Also for comms' - there's nothing quite like a bit of covert laying of "twisted-pair" to connect your HQ to the forward position, using period field telephones!

Which conveniently gives the other side a ready made and realistic objective - disrupt enemy C&C with a set of wire cutters.

I don't know if these have been seen on here before, so I apologise if this is old news.

If you wanted to go for authentic WWII radio comms, you could try these;
http://onlinemilitaria.net/shopexd.asp?id=4624&bc=no

They're a bit pricey, but certainly look cool!

Cheers,
Rik

you can just see it in the officer's hand - though you cannot use the ones they sell with radios over here because of something to do with frequencies and firemen.

though you cannot use the ones they sell with radios over here because of something to do with frequencies and firemen.

You could buy the empty shell version from WPG and put a PMR radio into. Oddball did this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SczDQZL ... ure=digest

yup, as did we (by which I mean Yith, of course)

Also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-blYGLYrwg

team of 10 all trying to talk on a radio net , TOTAL FOOKING NIGHTMARE

unless you all sit down together and do some training, such as voice procedure and practice whats propper comms and whats just bollocks, it dosnt work.

my final trade training in the army was as a control signaller and out of interest i used to channel scan at open day airsoft with my pmr and its dire, most people scream out useless bollocks like "im dead", "hes over there" , "one in the bush" . its was shite

you would need to think before you transmit, and only send relevant usefull information, and practice a propper contact report. used propperly radios can win a game, but give them to people without training and most people will rip out their earpeice in frustration (i know i did on many occasions)

pmr are ok at urban sites, you need a propper radio for large woodland, gunman on here brought some to good radios to ol`uns A2C event in 2008, i used one as a vechle commander, and it made the game SO much easier as the site was massive , but most people with radios had had propper training or at least a basic understanding of how to use a radio.

why not have 3 radios between 10 men, 1 for the commander, and two for his section/brick leaders, they can pass on orders and reports from top down to the men or from men to the top
hope this helps

For modern stuff, if you want reliable radios then there's two options as I see it:

1) PMR unlicensed... but get the professional (i.e. expensive) sets, not the £5 or even £30 ones. You'll be looking to pay up to £100 a set.
2) Commercial License... this covers a wide range of frequencies, doesn't cost the earth and can be used anywhere in the UK. (To my knowledge anyway)

I use #2 and that's what's inside my radio in the pic above.

I have used radios extensively in modern airsoft and what Porta says is completely true. The only time they really worked well was when I was part of a well organised and trained team and then we had commercial licensed radios (i.e. #2).

For WWII stuff, the only time I've used a radio is when I've been an organiser, and then usually to liaise with the commanders of both sides. The players just don't get to use them. And in fact are usually banned from doing so. Hand signals and runners are much more WWII for the scale of action we see.

To be honest after the hassle of struggling with radios in modern airsoft, not having them at all in WWII airsoft is actually one of the positive points for me.

As far as I can remember the WW2 handy talkie only had a range of about 1 mile on a good day so modern cheap PMR's are quite similar
So fitting a £30 set inside is an upgrade, mine are only for use in re-enactment days and organising games or assisting as in set up in a vehicle. I will be having them in the tank at some point as getting hand signals from a person I can't see or here would not help

Heh, you'll be lucky to get a mile out of a PMR unless you're in line of sight to be honest. A single building will usually block them.

Most of the site are far less than 1 mile anyway. I was using a cheap set in work recently through 5 floors of telephone exchange full of steel and comms cable and they were great but yes not 1 mile but still better than the real version was in WW2.
WW2 comms was bad so it is accurate to be poor in any case, I have heard of them only working about 500 ft during WW2 but still better than not having one.
The last thing you do want though is people with vox headsets breathing and moaning over them all day

Operating on A.M. 3885khz, Range 100ft to 1 mile using 5 valves. Known as the 'Handy Talkie' This small hand held radio was used for communications at very close range, with a max range of about one mile in ideal conditions.
It is often incorrectly named the walkie-talkie.
The French army used a post-war produced version almost identical to the WWII model.
A special webbing padded case was made for this item.

http://www.museumoftechnology.org.uk/mi ... b=milcomms

The modern PMR 446mhz is part of the ham band and they work quite well for the price and power only at 0.5W you can buy a set that can be switched to 4W on ebay for £75 but that would give you up to 10 miles range so they say but also be illegal in the UK.

Other options are fitting a decent antenna but technically also illegal.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Intek-MT-5050-PMR ... 1c19baaf02

I also modified a repro radio from WPG. Works very well now, even in dense woodland areas. Not sure if an Alan456R is OK to use in the UK though. I 100% agree with what Joseph Porta and Yith wrote, on many open days when teams are not used to radio discipline it often ends up in chaos

http://m1pencil.wordpress.com/2011/02/1 ... ification/
http://m1pencil.wordpress.com/2011/02/0 ... 611-radio/

Before we knew they were illegal we used to use German army military radios (we bought a set of six dead cheap)... they were on a par wih clansman and gave us really good coverage even in urban sites.

Then we fond out they were a bit illegal... the odds of getting caught using them were astrononcally slim but we were more worried about accidentally tying up a channel that might be needed by genuine users in an emergency.

So we sold them (for a small fortune) to collectors.

Before we knew they were illegal we used to use German army military radios (we bought a set of six dead cheap)... they were on a par wih clansman and gave us really good coverage even in urban sites.

Then we fond out they were a bit illegal... the odds of getting caught using them were astrononcally slim but we were more worried about accidentally tying up a channel that might be needed by genuine users in an emergency.

So we sold them (for a small fortune) to collectors.

Hi Gadge don't see you here so often now

Yes quite right.
The chance of getting caught with a PIR set at 4W by a bobby with a RF power meter wondering through some woods is insignificant
Even less if you have just fitted a better antenna on a half-watt version.

Before we knew they were illegal we used to use German army military radios (we bought a set of six dead cheap)... they were on a par wih clansman and gave us really good coverage even in urban sites.

Then we fond out they were a bit illegal... the odds of getting caught using them were astrononcally slim but we were more worried about accidentally tying up a channel that might be needed by genuine users in an emergency.

So we sold them (for a small fortune) to collectors.

Hi Gadge don't see you here so often now

Combination of things mate. Mainly my back gone again so the only events i'm going to be at from now on are those where i'm in a static role and also less free time for forums as my mums been taken into hospital (unlikely she'll be out for a very long time, if at all) and that takes up a lot of my free time.

You may have noticed I've been selling up most my kit too...