Walnut Creek AZ, great scenic trail

Zach, Timgco, Jason, Silverton and I hit up the Walnut Creek Trail south of Superior, AZ yesterday. It's designated as a moderate trail and it's pretty easy. No obstacles on the trail and we only used 4 low for throttle and hill descent control, especially on the rockier sections.

This is probably one of the prettier trails I've seen in AZ. It was about 20 miles in length and took about five hours including a stop for lunch. The second half of the trail is a bit difficult to navigate even with the Funtrek book and a GPS but we made it through with no real mistakes or delays. We probably did so well due to Zach's excellent navigating.

The new GMRS radios did well. The Btech handhelds had this weird thing where the volume knob seemed to slowly work its way down to low volume. Silverton's budget radio heard us well, but we had a difficult time hearing him. It may have been because he was set to low power but we were close together. We'll test that again soon. My Btech dash mount, installed unit worked very well and I'm happy with the purchase and install.



Silverton




Timgco


The saguaros were blooming!




We came across this railroad trestle and Timgco suggested we get a picture. From L-R, Silverton, me, Jason, Timgco

Railroad trestle photo is great fun!


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Looks like a good, fun trail. Good way to spend a Saturday.

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Thanks for posting the pictures. Motivating me to plan a trip.

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I have some thoughts on the radio volume.....

GMRS and FRS are running FM (Frequency Modulation) and so any issues with audio volume will have nothing to do with signal strength. If an FM signal gets too weak, you will hear static, not a lot of loss of volume. If one radio in particular sounds "low" on other radios, it is more likely due to the radio in question deviating too little. I'd look at the channel width on the radio in question and compare it to the B-Tech radios.

Edit: Other possible reasons for low audio: Mic gain on the transmitting radio and / or distance between the radio mic and the user's mouth. Or, just the volume of the user speaking into the mic