TOPIC: Two way Radios on Lakes

My Predicament : I boat in fairly remote mountain lakes often with no cell service. I also often invite friends to meet up with who occasionally travel in their own vehicles, and at different times. Its is a problem I am hoping to mitigate with a two way type radio. Most of my "local" lakes arent huge, but, I can easliy be 2 miles or more from the boat ramp/dock. My Boat is only 16 feet ,and doesnt have a ton of extra space, so a permanent mounted CB type radio isnt an option, also most folks nowadays dont have a CB in their car. Unfortunately it seems , after some research that most handheld consumer models, regardless of what range they claim all max out at about 1/2 mile. Thats not very effective imo. The VHF radios seem like they have much better range but have the drawback of being Marine only. Since the handheld unit seems to make the most sense to me, I am considering a dual band VHF/GPRS handheld. This will allow me to use in hiking and other situations also Unfortunately these arent cheap. Best price Ive found so far online is about 120 a piece. I will be buying 2,so I can leave one with the truck for the late visitors to call for us to come pick em up. I would like to hear from fellow boaters who use two way radios on the lake, particularity in mountain areas.

VHF radios are all "line-of-sight" meaning large obstructions like mountains or tall buildings make them impractical to use
There can be a "skip" of signal off clouds, buts its sketchy.
I've used 5W handhelds over distances of 10 miles or more in ideal conditions.

thanks Bill, I appreciate the reply, maybe I should look into the GPRS/FRS 5 watt handhelds. Its a much cheaper option than the Uniden 290 Ive been drooling over. But spending over 200 bucks for a set of 2 radios is pretty hefty to me.

I bought a pair of Motorola FRS that were rated at 2 Miles and worked great as long as there wasn't a mountain between the 2 radios. Used them while camping with the ATV's,

I also have a Garmin Rhino but that would be spendy to find 2 seeing as how they were discontinued awhile back.....They had the longest range of anything out there when I bought it.

Karsten