Reflink Radio Listen plus Walkie Taklie combined?

carp_brother

Hi there all
I had an AllSport Reflink! Radio for twickenham games to listen in on the Ref that varies frequencies FM2 I think between 60 and 64 MHz FM (the Reflink! box at the event is good but only lasts a couple of games and is hardwired to the frequency for that stadium and all the big staduims are different frequencies - big scam to buy a Reflink for each event!). Anyway Kids broke that so now I'm after a Radio Scanner that can scan (listen only) on this range and is variable, i.e not fixed but also be a mid-range Walkie Talkie.

I've searched on some good uk Radio sites but they have either one or t'uther but not the functionalities of both.

Does anyone know a product that fulfils the requirements I'm after? I will probably start enquiring on ebay and other sites similar to this as well.

Thank you to anyone ahead of time....!!!

gjchester

carp_brother wrote: »

Hi there all
I had an AllSport Reflink! Radio for twickenham games to listen in on the Ref that varies frequencies between 60 and 64 MHz FM

Anyway Kids broke that so now I'm after a Radio Scanner that can scan (listen only) this range but also be a Walkie Talkie.

Two questions really...

Sub FM radio (to 87.5Mhz) range scanners exist (search for Airband scanners) but are not common, mainly as theres not a lot of call for them, as there no bands that should be used for voice comms in the 60 Mhz range its unlikely you'll get a combined scanner walkie talkie with that range. You'd be looking at £100 or so for a suitable scanner. Not sure if that saves you much money...



Within the law Walkie Talkies come in two main versions. PMR 446, (these are 0.5W but do not need a licnece and on the 446Mhz range) but a more powerful 5W version that need s alicence (£75 for 5 years) that usually work on the 160 to 170 Mhz range or 449 Mhz

Yes you can buy the Baofeng 5W walkies talkies from Ebay for £25 or less each, and chances are you will not be caught if you set them to use any of the UK Simple frequencies (Google can give you a list to set the radios to). Bear in mind there are possible fines if you go this way but unless you annoy a legitimate user its unlikely they will try and find you.



Different question is what do they use, if its a "simple" AM or FM signal you just need to get something that can pick up the frequency, or if they have done anything to it. Given the receiver they will sell have to be cheap it can't be that complicated, but if they have done anything unusual to the signal in terms of simple encryption then it may be a scanner will receive the signal but not be able to turn it into a understandable voice.

Surely you can take a reflink unit apart and replace batteries, may not look as pretty afterwards but they probably are only using cheap watch cell batteries.

You may be able to use a worldband receiver like this - http://www.banggood.com/DEGEN-DE321-FM-Stereo-MW-SW-Radio-DSP-World-Band-Receiver-p-966020.html No idea how good it is other than finding it via Google. Again only works if they have no tried to alter the signal in any way, encrypt is the wrong work, but they may have done something to it that makes the signal non standard, easy to build a dedicated receiver for, but not easy to tune a off the shelf radio receiver in to.

carp_brother

Hi there - Thank you so much for the first sensible reply - we did have a older radio from Thailand bought 20+ years ago that (when you wind the roller knob down) does hit those lower frequencies without any additional de-processing - they can be picked up using the normal antenna. This radio looks like the banggood one linked and rolled that dial down to below 65 MHz. 62.5 MHz is licensed to RefLink! I believe.
Sadly the other Radio I used (TalkSport) doesn't have any earpiece output and the airband scanner radio had the aerial snapped by the kids. Obviously I want to get something sorted before the RWC later in the year!

The RefLink! Radio I took apart a couple of years ago has batteries in it - it's good for a couple of games but difficult to make work again after breaking it apart. Plus the headphones are a little basic.

gjchester

carp_brother wrote: »

This radio looks like the banggood one linked and rolled that dial down to below 65 MHz. 62.5 MHz is licensed to RefLink! I believe.
Sadly the other Radio I used (TalkSport) doesn't have any earpiece output and the airband scanner radio had the aerial snapped by the kids. Obviously I want to get something sorted before the RWC later in the year!

The RefLink! Radio I took apart a couple of years ago has batteries in it - it's good for a couple of games but difficult to make work again after breaking it apart. Plus the headphones are a little basic.

OFCom list 60.75 to 62.75 as [FONT=&quot]"Programme Making and Special Events Audio Distribution System" Its also Non Trade-able which means it has to be licensed directly from OfCom with a lot of Terms attached.[/FONT]

What that means in practical terms is the only people who will be making receivers for that frequency are people who paid a fair amount of dosh to OFCom to license the frequency. As such there not a huge demand for receivers for general use.

Wasteful as it seems, if the radios are not expensive to buy in the stadium, I'd be looking at hacking one apart to be able to put more batteries in and better earphones, scanners that do the same will be a lot more to buy.

Silverstone do the same sort of thing but they use conventional FM ranges so you can use any old FM radio

cthastings

Hi Good news for ref link purchasers . The RWC are using Ref Ears not ref link. The unit you purchase is run on a single cr2450 lithium cell which is very cheap to replace. If you turn the white RWC logo anti clockwise you can replace the battery. If you hold down the two white "up" "down" buttons whilst the radio is on it will swap to conveventional fm radio in the 87.5 to 108 mhz range so you can use it after the event. It auto searches frequencies and if you hold down the down button it goes into step mode allowing you to fine tune. To return to ref mode just hold down the two white buttons until the screen goes blank. It will work in all the RWC venues on two of the 5 available channels (one for REF one for simple commentary) There is also a standard headphone jack if you want to use your own earpiece. A bit expensive at £10 but at least they have a longer life than their cardboard box forebears.

snae

This is interesting. I wouldn't have expected refs to use frequencies so low only 6 months ago. I would have though they'd have migrated to UHF by now.
Baofengs/ Quanshengs and their clones are a good idea, but can't be used below 65MHz.

Mentioned in another thread recently, you could use an RTL-SDR with an android phone. Look here:

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/sdr-touch-brings-rtl-sdr-to-android/