What is a No License Two-Way Radio?

Usually when you want to buy a commercial quality two-way radio for your business, you'll be required to obtain an FCC license. You can go two routes to obtain a license. One is you hire someone to fill out the paperwork for you at a cost of $400-$500. The second is to try to figure out the paperwork yourself. Of course, like all government agencies, the FCC doesn't make things simple.

Fortunately, one nice thing the FCC did do is set aside 5 frequencies in the VHF business band that are unlicensed. These frequencies are called MURS which stands for Multi-Use Radio Service. MURS radios have a power limit of 2 Watts, but that is sufficient for most applications. MURS can achieve ranges of several miles depending on the environment it is used in. You can also use external antennas with gain and there are base station radios that enable you to use a variety of available antennas.

There are lots of radio-types available for MURS. Not only are there handheld two way radios and base station intercoms, but you can also get wireless PA systems, vandal and weather-proof wireless call boxes, customer service call boxes, and switch monitoring devices.

MURS is very lightly used in most locations so there isn't a lot of competition for the frequencies. However, on each frequency there are 38 "quiet codes" that help eliminate interference from neighboring radios. You simply assign one of these codes to all of your radios and even if there are other people communicating on your channel, your radio remains quiet.

The widest selection of MURS radios is available at www.IntercomsOnline.com. A detailed MURS technology guide is available here: MURS Technology