I’ve been very stressed lately and have been doing some window shopping to calm down. I’m interested in gadgets, but a lot of things can just be replaced with apps. I realize a phone won’t replace very large appliances like refrigerators or washing machines so I’m trying to scope my question to portable devices. So what are some portable devices or gadgets that their specialization hasn’t been replaced by smart phone apps? Extra points if they’re super useful and reliable.
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CB radios are still widely used by truck drivers. Listening to the CB on long trips can sometimes be very entertaining.
Caveat to this: If you use these radios on amateur bands without licenses, you should expect legal problems. Operating them on FRS, MURS, GMRS, or PLMRS bands is far less likely to upset anyone.
Non-hams might not be aware, but amateur radio requires you to identify yourself with your callsign at the beginning of every transmission, and every 10 minutes after that. Failure to do so is conspicuous. The other bands mentioned don’t have (or don’t enforce) this identification requirement, so you aren’t immediately outing yourself with every transmission.
This is funny, just yesterday I randomly found phones with built-in VHF/UHF radios on Aliexpress. To be fair, they look super clunky and are very expensive for off-brand Chinese phones ($800+), but they do exist. I wonder who buys them.
I had a Nokia phone (6070?) that had some kind of walkie-talkie-like function, but I never figured out what it did.
Edit: Apparently it’s called Push-to-Talk, and it uses PTT service, whatever that is.
I remember seeing a product demo in Australia by Huawei about a mobile phone with an inbuilt 2way radio marketed for mines.
I have never used the RFinder but the guy who developed it is local so I’m aware of it. https://rfinder.shop/product/rfinder-m6-dual-band-dmr-4g-lte/ it looks awesome but is more expensive than a really good HF base station so ymmv