The problem you will often face with two-way radios is the fact that when it comes to distance, they are abysmal. If you head down the cheaper end of the market, then you are lucky to get a mile or two of range. This simply won’t do for most purposes. Luckily for you, our team of researchers is on the ball. Not only have we found one of the best two-way radios for distance, but we have found one of the best-priced two-way radios on the market too.n Let’s take a little look at the GXT1000 from Midland, shall we?
What Made The GXT1000 The Best Two Way Radio for Distance
We won’t lie to you, this radio isn’t the Cadillac – but it truly is the best inexpensive two-way radio we have found. It’s packed with value. The whole purpose of this radio is for people who need a huge range, but they want the radio to be simple to use. This means that your real highlights will be:
- Up to a 36-mile range
- Privacy on channels
- 50 GMRS channels
- Weather scanning
- Voice-activated transmissions
To be honest, we enjoy it like this. We do love our convoluted radios on occasion. We are big radio lovers, after all. However, even we know that they can be a bit complex for the newbie radio operator. If you want something convoluted that is oozing features, this is not the radio for you.
Going The Distance
As we already said before; this radio is marketed as being able to hit 36-miles. We would love to tell you that it can reach that sort of distance, but you know in practice that isn’t how things work. That being said, you are still going to get a hefty range with the GXT1000. We reckon it wouldn’t be too difficult to hit 20-miles, even with a fair number of obstacles in the way.
There are very, very few radios on the market that come even close to the range that the GXT1000 from Midland offers, particularly on the handheld radio side of things. Honestly, we have no idea how this radio is able to accomplish it at this price point. It just somehow manages to do so!
Radio Channels
This is the part where we have to give you a little bit of bad news, unfortunately. This is that the radio uses GMRS (partially how the range is so long), which means that in many countries you will need to obtain a license to be able to use the radio. Sure, nobody is really going to tell that you are using the radio system if you are in the middle of nowhere…but we wouldn’t advocate breaking the law. Luckily for you, the license is fairly cheap. If you’re not looking for the best 2-way radio intended for business use, your license would cover any friends & family members you hand these radios out to.
Got it? Great! Now, for the good news. There are 50 channels here. This makes communication with other people nice and easy. If you want to make the channels private, then you can do that. It only takes a couple of button presses and, generally speaking, the process is pretty intuitive. We would always recommend that you flip through the manual that you received with your radio, though. It makes things a lot easier!
Expandable System
Normally, when you pick up radios at this sort of price, you will be limited in expansion options. It doesn’t matter really two way vs walkie talkies. Some radios can just be difficult to add to an existing set, even if it’s the same brand. Thankfully, not an issue with the GXT1000. You see, this radio can have as many radios as you want to be connected up. This is just one of the many benefits when radios are using GMRS radio frequencies.
To get you started, the radios come in a variety of different ‘sets’, so you can start off with the right amount of radios that you need and go from there. Midland really does make it simple if you are trying to kit out a team with some awesome new long-distance two-way radios.
Hands-Free Communication
This makes a great two-way radio for security. The radio can be activated whenever it hears a voice (you can turn this off if you want). This means that you do not need to worry about going through the rigmarole of hitting a switch whenever you want to talk. Ideal for those long walks where you may want to save 1 or 2 calories, right? Yeah. Ok. Fine. It doesn’t matter that much on the energy-saving front. We are just lazy.
Sound Quality
For the price, the microphone and the speakers here work incredibly well. You may notice a little bit of a drop off in audio quality when you get to those longer ranges, but that is cool. We find that the range for audio quality being perfect is somewhere in the 10 to 15 mile range, which is going to be fine for the vast majority of people.
Batteries
The radio comes complete with rechargeable batteries. However, we suggest that you pick up some AA batteries at the same time, preferably rechargeable so you are not doing any damage to the environment. The radio works with these batteries too, which is fantastic. A lot of people have said that the radio functions a lot better with AA batteries anyway.
Conclusion
The Midland GXT1000 is a radio which simply cannot be beat for the price. If you are looking for affordable handheld radios that can send your transmissions massive distances, then this should be on your ‘to buy’ list. Just bear in mind that if you buy this, it won’t have every last bell and whistle. For most people, this is going to be fine.
