Thanks for the feedback guys. I have owned two different set of Motorolas in the past. They've worked pretty well as long as whoever you are talking to was pretty close, but I was never impressed with their range.

These Midlands that I'm looking at come with 5 watts. They claim 14 miles, but as always that's line of sight. All the other radios I've owned claimed 5 miles of coverage, but worked maybe up to a mile. So, I'm thinking that I have a good chance of getting maybe 3-4 miles with these Midlands. Let me know if you think this is a fair expectation.

The other thing is the packaging they come in. They pack the same product in three different ways (all come with the same functionality except as it pertains to power sources). The cheapest packaging comes with the battery pack and charger. They don't say whether this radio will work off of AA batteries. Do you really think they redesigned their product to only work off their battery packs? The middle model runs off AA batteries only and does not come with neither a battery pack nor the charger. The most expensive model comes with the battery pack and charger and states that it runs off AA batteries as well. I'm a little fishy that the cheapest model in the most expensive model are the same thing, but who knows. The difference in price is $ 70; $ 85; and $ 104, respectively. They also seem to OEM a radio to Cabelas. Cabelas has branded it as the "Bubba" Radio Two-Pack. I think it may be the same product as the middle end packaging, but the only difference is Cabelas doesn't advertise any weather functionality, which I think could come in handy (and it doesn't come in camo). They package this at $ 70.

So, I'm tending to purchase the middle end product for $ 85, mainly to get the weather functionality. Let me know what you think. I'm thinking the battery pack would be a waste of time and money... better off just buying an extra stock of AA's.

Cheers,