I have used one set of these on my trip to High Tatra Mountains in Slovakia for personal communication. It is a great communicator for a reasonable price. Battery and range are decent for it's class. This radio uses 4 AAA rechargeable batteries and they needed to be recharged approx. every second day (with some reserve). The radio was in use for 6 hour per day approx. The good think is that even if you run out of batteries and there is no way of recharging them you can replace them by regular alkalines. Voice is clear as the radio has background noise reduction. If noise reduction is turned off the range of radios increases but there is a background noise heard all the time as your radio is switched on (it must be on, otherwise you will not know if somebody talks to you). It is not very convenient to hear it while you are on a hike (heard noise has higher level than voice from speaker), therefore I suggest to turn noise reduction on and when you intent to speak to other person you may press "call" button on the other radio will beep. Then you can switch background noise off if greater range is needed. The range of radios is great for its class, but it is almost impossible to reach 12 km, unless you are calling from one hill top to other. I manage to establish the connection on 3.5 km distance (other person was in a forest, I on the bare hill slope. The forest started approx in the middle of the distance between me and the second person) Signal was great. I tried also 6 km distance but I thwarted making a connection. But 3.5 km is really good for 500 mW transceiver. The radio has also private codes and if you use them there is almost no possibility of interference with someone else. I would recommend this product.