Binatone Terrain 550

These sets come in a robust case. Externally they have sockets for charging and ear piece. It has 8 channels and 38 CTCSS codes, vox, vibrating alarm together with unwanted features like a clock and stop watch, together with 5 "ring" tones mislabelled "Call" As these only appear to be used by kids to annoy everyone else, I wish manufactureres would leave them off.
The radio claims to have a better aerial and also noise reduction system. The aerial is marked "long range"
Tests showed that the sets do go further than the MR 150 and that reception is a lot clearer, so far we have not been able to find suitable terrain to really test the longest range, what is noticeable is that at a mile through urban development, a basic MR 150 will detct another 150 but is unintelligable, the 550 is clear as a bell.
Unfortunately, they eat batteries. They come with a rechargeable pack good for up to 12 hours before recharge. As we often use these when away from home camping, recharging is a serious problem and no 12 volt charger is available. At present we use a small rectifier to bump up the car battery to 240 volt and then use the charger that came with the sets to step back down to presumably 4.8 volt. An alternative is to fit 4 AAA cells. Brand new Duracells only lasted 16 hours when tested, so although in theory, you can carry spare batteries, it will be very expensive unless you can use the charger. Pity.
It would be interesting to try these out against top of the range sets, I think they would compare well. Currently on sale at £40 for two sets with batteries and charger

Added:  Sunday, September 02, 2007
Reviewer:  Byron
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