has anyone ever used a hand held radio in glamis?? we are trying to decide if we should go with the 5 watt hand held radios or the 50 watt car mounted radios..the 5 watt one are cheaper but how far will they go?? has anyone ever used the 5 watt hand held??

My son has a handheld radio set-up for his quad and it works great. The furthest we have tested it was about 1/2 mile and it still sounded great. We have never tried it long distances in the bowls (since we don't get separated that far) so I'm not sure how it would do out there. If you just want it for communicating in line while on a ride you should be fine. If you plan on communicating with other groups or a camp radio I would suggest the car mounted radio. Get with Socaldmax he has a set up that is cheaper than my Vertex was and appears to work better now that I changed to it.

N2Deep nailed it/ handhelds are great for pretty much line of site.
The higher power systems work much better for longer distances. We talked to socaldmax from Osborne all the way to the I8 mountain pass this past week. The higher power systems also work great if someone is out in the dunes and needs help when no one is around.

Get the highest power radio you are willing to spend the money on. Wattage equals distance and clarity.

I just sold an Icom handheld and dash mount last year for $200 for the set. I never really used them once I quit going to Baja.

PCI makes a good radio but they are very proud of their stuff. Icom is a good radio for the money.