One other thing. Some in my neighborhood are asking about what would be a neighborhood net. The desire is to be able to selectively net about 100 homes over a 3/4 mile diameter, and be able to restrict conversation to only those 100 or so designated homes. The digital eXRS radios sounded about ideal, but they went out of business last August. FRS and GMRS are out because of the eavsdropping problem, as are ham frequencies.

I am hearing there may be a sort of "radio" that may suit our needs just fine - the Motorola/Nextel i355. These are sort of dual mode radios made a few years ago. In one mode (maybe the primary mode), they are a digital cell phone that uses a proprietary cell communication technology. In the other mode, they are a digtal 900 MHz radio with encoded communications that can be programmed with all of the addresses in a net. You can call point-to-point, point-to-selective group, or point to net. They are only about 1/2 watt or so, and from what I hear have about a 1.5 or 2 mile max range. I looked on Ebay, and used i355s are available for $25 - $50 ea. The reason they are so cheap is the digital cell network went under last year or so, and the cell phone part is now useless.

My question is if you guys have heard of these and can shed additional light on them, or know of other suitable technologies that don't require a test, a license, are cheap, easy to use, and prevent eavsdropping?