In part 2 of CES 2016 we inform you about what was shown in the booth of Midland USA and Whistler.
MIDLAND
Booth of Midland USA
The theme for Midland this year was all about being E+READY.
The booth was a kind of ‘EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS CENTER’ and showed mainly Emergency Solutions by Midland.
Line of E+Ready products
The weather in USA is different from Europe. It seems the weather can change more rapidly to more dramatic circumstances. There are large areas that suffer from tornados. The long distances sometimes prevent for rapid response in case of emergencies. Popular outside the cities is NOA Weather channels. Even many CB Radio have weather channels were you can listen to the weather forecast.
The range of Midland USA Emergency Solutions offers:
• Emergency crank radios
• Emergency portable weather radio
• Emergency portable chargers
• Emergency set of two-way radios
Midland Europe introduced some time ago a crank radio for the European market, the type is ER300.
Midland Europe crank radio type ER300
FLYING COW
To show how huge a disaster can be Midland showed a ‘flying cow’. A kind of tornado was created in a showcase and a small cow was flying around in the air. Mother cow was standing on the ground and looked desperately to the young cow flying around. Funny idea but no idea or this will help selling the emergency products. But at least it caught our attention. But for those who want to be storm chaser Midland offers some good products.
Tornado Showcase
The Flying Cow Sad Mother Cow
LIKE EUROPEAN GB1
More interesting than the flying cow was the little truck in the Midland booth. Mounted in the vehicle was the Midland MicroMobile Two Way radio type MXT100.
Midland MICROMOBILE™ GMRS Two-Way Radio is the latest innovation from a leader in Consumer GMRS Two-Way Radios. With an ultra-compact design which mounts just about anywhere, the MICROMOBILE™ is great for RVing, Road Trips, ATV/UTV activities, and on the Farm or Ranch.
A Full 5-Watts of Power with an external magnetic mount antenna, offers
extended range capability. Best of all, the MICROMOBILE™ provides the ability to talk to other Midland and most other GMRS Two-Way (Walkie-Talkie) Radios.
In Europe we have a similar model radio from Midland called the GB1. In USA it is a GMRS and in Europe it is a PMR446. The frequencies for both models are different and can not communicate together. What is similar is the fact that the antenna from both models is fixed to the radio by a coax cable.
In future Midland USA will introduce new versions of MXT100 with higher output power. For higher output a license is needed for GMRS in USA.
WHISTLER
The Whistler brand is not well known in Europe. They sell many different electronic devices like radar detectors, power inverters, navigation and scanners. New on the booth were wearable electronic flashing lights to mount on shoes, helmets etc.
Our attention was mainly for the scanning receivers.
Scanner part of Whistler booth
A few years ago Whistler took over the scanner line from GRE. All models are built for the USA market and not specific for Europe. In UK you find will find some traders that import this brand, but Uniden is by far the leader for scanning receivers in Europe and USA.
Wayne Willson
The scanner specialist from Whistler is mr Wayne Wilson. He is a friendly man, always present at CES to answer questions from visitors about the scanner line.
He has been working during many years for several scanner brands and is now the Whister scanner specialist and manager.
In USA the scanners are distributed by a selected group of retailers, mainly HAM related.
NEW WHISTLER MODELS
WS1088 and WS1098
Wayne proudly talked about the new scanners WS1088 and WS1098. Both models cover some of the recent trunking systems used in USA. Whistler does not have a solution or plans to introduce a scanner that will cover the European TETRA network.
So far Part 2 of CES 2016, next time what we saw and heard at CB Distributing and new comer on USA market President USA !