When somebody is blabbing on PTT, press the stop/off/red key. It will kill their conversation immediately. A bit of advice, though - few folks seem to know this works, so keep it to yourself. They'll just think their phone dropped the chat.

As for the PTT - it's invaluable in certain situations, but the abusers deserve a rapid and furious flurry of punches to the face. The 99% of cell phone users who are inconsiderate slobs are annoying enough, but listening to some damn walkie-talkie conversation while I'm eating my lunch, brings fantasies of violence I dare not discuss.

Justin...aren't you in the Bay Area? If so, from a technical perspective, the Nextel's work very well around here. We've got field people all over the East Bay - both sides of the hills - and the blind spots are pretty far and few between.

My road trips are almost all on the West coast, and I've had mixed results - rural area coverage varies quite a bit. There are huge gaps of coverage in northern CA and OR, and many areas of WA aren't much better.