FRS blues

I got out the FRS talkies thinking that maybe they are still used by hunters ?  Nope, haven't heard anything so far.  But one thing I did notice was the antenna, the rubber on the spiral antenna has cracked and gotten brittle.

  Unfortunately there's no easy way to replace these - everybody hates Baofeng talkies but the antennas are easy to replace.

And this was the intent of the FCC and Radio Shack, the FCC didn't want people to be able to use an FRS at home, possibly with higher potential for interference (especially with an external amplifier) - Radio Shack probably just wanted to have have another radio type to be able to sell.

The only FRS that I recall with seperate antenna, the Radio Shack 21-1850:

As I understand it the radio RF guts are in the antenna base, it connects to the power supply connector - the microphone also has the speaker/display and controls (the audio and control guts).  It was meant for mobile usage but I suspect some people stuck the antenna up in an attic to get better range ? 

This was sorta the same concept as the International Crystal 1500 part 15 CB mentioned before:

https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/02/international-crystal-model-1500-cb.html

BTW, here is the semi-obligatory inflated price of the Radio Shack mobile FRS:

One question I've never really looked into is possibly using the FRS radios for something off-label like data transmission or control.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm