Cheap Walkie Talkies Work!

[Briar Lee]

Today I was at a pawn shop looking for chainsaw gear, to better play with my new Husky chainsaw, when I saw a pair of cheap ONN brand walkie talkies marked for $25.

Being something of an old Scotsman I had to try them out, and wound up paying $15 cash for the pair.

I’m on my back deck smoking a Marxman and my kids are over a mile away with a slew of houses between us, and we are having a ball playing with these walkie talkies. They work amazingly well, not at all like the ones I had as a kid.

Brand new these are $25 per pair.



To work for 16 miles you’d have to be in the middle of Kansas.

But they’ll work well over a mile in town.

If you use rechargeable AA batteries they recharge with a micro USB and a car or wall charger.

These should be loads of fun at the farm, or anywhere else you’d like a pair of walkie talkies that really work.

 

[mso489]

I guess with cell phones these might be a redundancy, but between two parties, if you are both attending the calls, it could be just right.

 

[Briar Lee]

I guess with cell phones these might be a redundancy, but between two parties, if you are both attending the calls, it could be just right.

The ones I bought have 22 channels, and that should be plenty for us to find an unused channel.

It seems walkie talkies come in all qualities and prices, and my set are at the bottom. They all work on 22 assigned FM channels, unlike the CB radio channels walkie talkies used fifty years ago.

If you buy a set get one made since 2017.

Since 2017 the gubbermint has allowed walkie talkies to have up to 2 watts of power without a license, four times the power as previous.

Family Radio Service - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I had some about twenty years old that only worked if you were in sight of who you were talking to.

These new ones, even the Walmart cheapies like mine will talk a mile in town.

 

[Briar Lee]

Doing a little research, the 5 pointed star Five Star Lees (or Marxman 400) of modern walkie talkies seem to be the Motorola T600.



The T600 is waterproof, has a dual .5 and 2 watt talk switch (to save batteries) and overall seems to be the best of the cheap family channel walkie talkies.

But if you’d like to have one that puts out 10 watts and needs a HAM radio license to be legal to use, and blows all the cheapies in the weeds, Baofeng has you covered.



The best of the best walkie talkies today are about $60 a pair.

My parents bought me a set of Sears walkie talkies about 1968, and I still have them and they still worked the last time I put batteries in the them. The box said they’d talk a quarter mile, and sometimes they did. They cost $20 then.

The inflation calculator says $20 in 1968 is about $175 today and $60 today would have only been $7 then.

Gadgets get better and cheaper every year.

 

[AJL67]

Don't forget to say "over" over.

 

[bullet08]

The TV show was "Combat!" It was very popular in Korea during 70's. Every kid wanted SCR-536. But alas, none to be had for kids' toy. But there were cheap toys that actually worked. Wasn't interested in it. My older son is sort of interested in radio and broadcasting. Have some stuff he carries around from place to place. But no handie talkie (original nickname).

 

[bullet08]

Don't forget to say "over" over.

Roger that, over.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I could see playing with a grandchild with a set of walkie talkies, but other than that... just call me on my phone or text me. I think that the drop in price is because no one wants a walkie talkie these days. ...sort of like Five Star Lees.

 

[AJL67]

I could see playing with a grandchild with a set of walkie talkies, but other than that... just call me on my phone or text me. I think that the drop in price is because no one wants a walkie talkie these days. ...sort of like Five Star Lees.

Had the star trek communicator walkie talkies when i was little, the range was about from one side of the house to the other, were fun for about an hour. Now you can always use the walkie talkie feature on the iPhone.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Had the star trek communicator walkie talkies when i was little, the range was about from one side of the house to the other, were fun for about an hour. Now you can always use the walkie talkie feature on the iPhone.

I had those two, with the phaser and a holster. I remember that it had some real metal in it, and had some heft to give it some lifelikeness... even though they really didn't do anything.

We would ride our bikes around the neighborhood and talk on the walkies, but you still had to stay within shouting range for them to work, ha ha.

 

[AJL67]

I had those two, with the phaser and a holster. I remember that it had some real metal in it, and had some heft to give it some lifelikeness... even though they really didn't do anything.

We would ride our bikes around the neighborhood and talk on the walkies, but you still had to stay within shouting range for them to work, ha ha.

1974 MEGO Star Trek Communicators Walkie-Talkies in Packaging for parts/repair. | eBay

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For $600 they don't even work!


There is a set in a sealed bot for $1,299.95

lol

 

[cosmicfolklore]

1974 MEGO Star Trek Communicators Walkie-Talkies in Packaging for parts/repair. | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 1974 MEGO Star Trek Communicators Walkie-Talkies in Packaging for parts/repair. at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

For $600 they don't even work!


There is a set in a sealed bot for $1,299.95

lol

Ha ha, have at it. I don't have any kids that are rug rats anymore, so...

 

[ak2000]

FYI 2W GMRS channels require a license for legal operation. 1/2W FRS channels are license free.

 

[skeeter456]

We use them for rabbit hunting quite often to see where everyone are in the woods

 

[trudger]

Work great when you’re out in no service country. There are still places cell phones are useless.

 

[monty55]

They come in particularly handy in remote areas where there is no cell phone service. Besides, with a cell phone, they have to call you and you have to answer it. With a walkie talkie, they just push the button and talk, and you hear it.

Great for hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, backpacking, boating, canoeing when your with others in remote areas.

 

[Briar Lee]

Here are the gubbermint rules for personal radios:

Personal Radio Services

Personal radio services are short-range, low-power radio communications using devices that operate much like walkie-talkies. Personal radio services include one- and two-way voice services, data services and remote-control transmissions that operate equipment.

www.fcc.gov

For family channel radios like my new ones, 2 watts is the max and no special license is needed.

About two miles of useful range on the new 2 watt radios seems to be the norm.

I follow the law.

I require everyone I invite to my farm also follow the law.

It’s not I’m a do gooder, or holier than thou, following the law is a simple way to live to comb gray hair and not dread anything.


My farm is a mile long, and a half mile wide. 2 watts is plenty.


By deer season every hunter at my farm will have one of these issued.

In Polk County Missouri a hunter can buy Unlimted antlerless deer tags, $7 each.

I do not charge my friends to deer hunt. If I did I’d disgrace the memory of my ancestors who tried to legally kill every deer on our place since 1876.

My farm was a dairy farm, and you can have alfalfa or deer, not both.

We haven’t had alfalfa or dairy cows since 1971, but deer are still considered varmits by me.


Besides, all deer go to the poor and needy.


Old time sons of the pioneer farmers, of which I’m one, don’t eat deer, and I’m too old to develop a taste for it now.

 

[ssjones]

We keep a pair in my restaurants, for emergency use should out drive-thru headset system go down. They do work!

The most fun I remember with walkie-talkies was in NYC in the early 1990's, before cell phones. I went on a bus trip with my family, including five nieces and nephews. We all had them and had a blast talking to each other in seven floors of Macy's, etc. The bus drivers all pick up in front of Macy's and at that time, they were using them to communicate with group leaders. We had fun messing with them on pick-up points and times. Hopefully, no one missed their bus due to our shenanigans.

CB radios, also a lot of fun, back in the day. I loved messing with truck drivers.

 

[captpat]

I have a pair of Midland's they work great. Especially handy when I need to open a circuit breaker for repairs, my SO stands near the light and tells me when it goes out. That way I know I have the right breaker. Possibilities are nearly endless.

 

[Briar Lee]

My Sears walkie talkies are the 300 milliamp Sears 300 model, rated 1/4 mile. These were $19.99 in 1968. Sears Best model was the 600, at $29.99 and those were rated 3/4 mile.

I remember this because after I got them as a birthday present I looked it up.



I think my Daddy had as much fun talking to me with them as I did.

I’d walk towards the post pile a quarter mile away, but after the creek an eighth of a mile they started getting scratchy,



But there’s a spot where I could see the Grade A milk barn from the post pile, they’d usually work.



They used channel 14 on the citizen’s radio band. My mother had me look up all about them in the World Book Encyclopedia, where I also learned about AM and FM and shortwave and amateur radio bands, and how the FCC regulated them, so the public could use radios.

Fewer kids would grow up to resent their own government, if they not only knew how to read, but absolutely had to, or else, you know?

——
I gave you a land on which you had not laboredand cities that you had not built, and you dwell inthem. You eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveorchards that you did not plant.