The GMR / FRS radios are never as good as they say they are unless you live on the prairies! (Personal experience)

If you are getting GMRS FMRS radios which are good for local use ... get the US models. The handheld GMRS can have a max of 5 watts in the US and I believe it is only 2 watts in Canada. You can get them on Ebay or from a US supplier.

JAB

some of the FRS radios can be picked up on the CB, so you can use a CB as a base station it is not power hungry and works good in an off grid situation as well.
You need to test it find the channel, most CBs and all Base station CBs have a scan mode. Transmit close to the CB, run scan and find the channel.

You can use the Regular CB as a base station or if you have 110v then the base station would be good, but draws 110v volts so not so good in a power out situation.

Use an inverter. 😉

inverters take more power to run,
but..
base stations are much more powerful and can handle a bigger antenna, so choices

some of the FRS radios can be picked up on the CB, so you can use a CB as a base station it is not power hungry and works good in an off grid situation as well.
You need to test it find the channel, most CBs and all Base station CBs have a scan mode. Transmit close to the CB, run scan and find the channel.

You can use the Regular CB as a base station or if you have 110v then the base station would be good, but draws 110v volts so not so good in a power out situation.

I hope that you ment to say that some CB units come equipped with FRS capabilities. If not your CB is done broke.

The CB channels run from 26.965 MHz to 27.405 MHz, and transmit AM or SSB. While the FRS channels run from 462.5625 MHz to 467.7125 MHz. and use narrow band FM to transmit and receive. The GMRS is in the same frequency area and also uses FM.

The FRS radios are limited to 1/2 a watt power while the GMRS are rated at 5 watts. It is true the range is never what is advertised, but my choice is the GMRS units. They will provide reliable communication for a couple of miles which is all that's needed around the old homestead.

HTP

With the FRS and GMRS radios we always found the quality really lacking and sought out some better radios. Also I compared the FRS radios we had with some Motorola CLS 1413 models (fairly common), and the CLS radios blew the FRS away for range and audio quality.

We recently purchased two new models (two of each)... both are license free (which as a bit of a priority for us). The RDM2080d's are VHF and have some scrambling abilities. We found they worked well but haven't really tested their range. The digital DTR radios are I think in the 2.4 GHz range and since they are digital, have very clear audio but there is a slight delay before you can talk.

Unfortunately we haven't had a chance to try the range on the DTR radios yet, but both these radios appear to be built quite well... but the DTR radios may have the edge since there is a rubber cover around them.

Motorola RDM2080d (MURS) (2 watt) 13 floors, and 220,000 sq.ft (I purchased these from the US as they were too expensive in Canada)

Motorola DTR650 digital 25 floors and 300,000 square feet (These I found in Canada for not a bad price).

We also have some midland portable CB's which I'd like to test compare them with all the other radios we have for range and audio quality.