as far as drounding out the airwaves with 100 watts, well, we only did it on channel 9. I was fortunate once to have my radio on and monitoring it, back when that 30 car pile-up happened just north of Milwaukee on I-43 in the fog. If anybody knows that stretch of highway between Two Rivers and Milwaukee knows that there isn't any cell phone coverage up there. I relayed the incident to the Coast Guard who happened to be monitering at the same time and they dispatched EMS personnel. But only on ch. 9. s far as those FRS radios, not the Coast Guard, we are still using the Motorola Astro Saber portable radios which are absolutely crap. We are starting to phase them out, because they don't hold a charge for anything, not only that, they really aren't built for the conditions that the Coast Guard is usually in.



However we are slowly switching to the Motorola XTS 3500 and the 5000 which are alot better, and handle the conditions we put them through better. They should, because at 2,000 a pop they are not cheap.