Come on now Mark Play Nice.

You can't fix stupid!

Handitalkies are for idiots.
WHY?
Because they don't do anything!
Yes they are great for public service events, for hamfests where you want to keep track of each individual person in your group, in emergencies where most communications has been wiped out.

But they suck if you cannot hit the repeaters and their LOS is determined by the size of the ANTENNA, and the height of the antenna above ground.

Two rules of thumb - transmitter range is usually LOS - Line of Sight, even when it is line of sight, the range even for a good antenna is about 1.15 miles per each foot the antenna is held above ground.

Rule number 2 - most educated people, builds repeaters in high places.
Mountain tops, tall buildings, on top of tall towers etc....
The repeater by rule of thumb - usually has a hi gain antenna and a transmitter of 10 - 150 watts..

This extends the range of the hand held as well as the repeater.

The funny thing is - most people are so uneducated - they do not realize that the repeater does all of the work.
All that they are concerned with is that they can buy some type of handitalkie for $50 - $250.00 and are free of the expense of a radio, a power supply, a length of coax, a tower or piece of pipe, grounding, a hi gain antenna - which all costs money!

If the only radio a person owns is a handitalkie - they are not HAMS - they are CB;rs....
Why?
Because when MR. Tornado comes to town and wipes out the repeater - they are of no use to anyone except the local group which handles traffic from the EOC to the hospital, Police, Fire, Ambulance - locally.

Most of those people - because they have no radio experience, is dumbfounded when it comes to putting up temporary repeaters, handling traffic, being of any real value. Because the Handitalkie pretty much reminds them of being on a phone - they end up talking most times as if they were on a telephone. That in return makes us all look bad!

Most times when a emergency does happen, the walkie talkie is still sitting in the drawer - where it was kept for emergencies -with dead batteries and of no use to anyone.

At least the OP didn't waste their money on one of these new Bofung handheld $50.00 radios. Their battery lifespan while transmitting is about 45 minutes max. What does a person do after a hour and a half when both the battery and the spare is dead? They run back to the EOC for another radio or another task to perform.

My personal opinion is that if a person had a GOTA bag with a 50 watt mobile transceiver, a dual band antenna, 6 sticks of 4' fiberglass pole, a ground rod, a 40' length of coax and one of those 850 CCA jump starter battery packs - they could effectively reduce transmit power if needed and could transmit for hours on a single charge. It could be recharged off a vehicle battery, and if it had cross repeat / could be used as a repeater in a emergency to go between the walkie talkies and a more distant repeater...