Walkie Talkies Explored - We get Hands on
For Show 51 of our tech podcast, Carl and Pete put three sets of walkie -talkies to the test. Here's a transcript of our mobile comms feature.
Listen to FrequencyCast Show 51 - Walkie Talkies Explored |
Walkie-Talkie Portable Radios Tested:
Pete:
OK Carl, the next thing we're going to talk about is walkie-talkies. Over.
Carl:
Roger that.
Pete:
Walkie-talkies - do you remember when you were a kid, you used to have one of those little walkie-talkies with the huge telescopic aerials?
Carl:
What - you mean one of these?
Pete:
Oh wow! I haven't seen one of those for ages, the little Morse code buttons on the front - cool.
Old-style Kids Walkie Talkie
Carl:
Yeah, and it gives you all the coding as well, so you can do your own Morse code. It took me hours to work out what A was.
Pete:
Oh, you're dotty, you are! Anyway, things have moved on since those walkie-talkies, and we now have things like these, which aren't called walkie-talkies any more, are they?
Carl:
I don't know, aren't they? I always call them walkie-talkies.
Pete:
No, they're now called PMRs.
Carl:
PMRs - what does that stand for?
Pete:
Private Mobile Radio - it's the posh name for walkie-talkies. The reason we're going to talk about these is because these are a growing thing. If you're out and about, you're on a bike, you're going out and about with your family, you want a little device, doesn't cost you the same as having a mobile phone costs you, or indeed if you're in two cars, you can communicate car to car without the need to faff about with mobile phones and text messages. So these are pretty good, and they've come on a heck of a long way since the old walkie-talkie days.
Carl:
OK, let me have a look at that one - what have we got? So this one's by Cobra.
Pete:
So there you go, this is a Cobra MT975 that we've been sent to review, a rather nice little walkie-talkie, it does the job beautifully. It claims to have a range of 13 kilometres, but we'll be putting that to the test a little bit later.
Set of Cobra MT975 PMR handsets, available at Maplin
Carl:
Ooh, that's quite impressive, isn't it?
Pete:
Yeah, but it's not to be believed. Something I should tell you about, for those technically-minded, these broadcast on 446 megahertz on UHF. These have eight channels, and they operate on a transmitter power of half a watt, that's for those technically-minded out there.
Carl:
Just eight channels?
Pete:
Yeah, you'd think, if everyone's got one of these, and there's only eight channels, people will talk all over each other, but there's this clever thing called CTCSS that can separate the channels out to give you a bit more privacy.
Carl:
Hold on a minute - I've only just got over PMR. So that's five letters - what do they stand for?
Pete:
"Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System", or there's a new digital one called DCS.
Carl:
So how much do the Cobras retail for?
Pete:
About £50 or £60 a pair.
Carl:
And where can I get them?
Pete:
Have a look on our website - we'll have the latest prices on there.
LINK: Cobra MT975 at Maplin.co.uk - £59.99 at time of recording
Carl:
Oh, you don't make anything easy for me, do you?
Pete:
Sorry, no. At the other end of the spectrum, You've got something like this. Now you see, this is a slightly larger unit, but still pretty portable and stylish. This is a Mitex, these actually operate on a frequency of 449 megahertz, with a power of five watts, so these are ten times more powerful than our Cobras here.
Carl:
Good grief!
Pete:
However, you need one of these.
Carl:
A piece of paper, what, do you set light to it and send smoke signals? - oh, Ofcom, Office of Communications - what do they do then?
Pete:
So this is an official licence, these units that operate on 449 with a five watt transmitter have to have a licence. Unfortunately, our parent company does have a licence, so we can play around with these.
Carl:
Smashing.
Pete:
So what do you reckon - shall we put some of these to the test?
Carl:
Yep - let's get out.
Pete:
Now I'm going to get in the car, I'm actually going to be the passenger, so I'm obviously not using these while I'm driving, and I've also got an iPhone using an app called Free GPS, which gives us a distance as the crow flies. So I should be able to leave you here with a tape recorder, get into the car, drive off for a few miles, to see how far these walkie-talkies reach.
Carl:
So this is the longest, straightest road we can find? - here we go.
Pete:
OK, so we are now on the move, heading in a westerly direction, 150 feet away talking to you on the Cobra.
Carl:
And you're coming through loud and clear.
Pete:
We're now at the 1,000 foot mark, and still heading in a westerly direction on the Cobra.
Carl:
Whilst I can hear you, there's quite a bit of crackle on the line.
Pete:
Checking in at the half a mile mark, talking to you on the Cobra.
Carl:
Half a mile mark, and your signal's coming through, I can hear you, there's crackle, I can still make out what you're saying, and the bleep, the beacon bleep, comes through very clearly.
Pete:
We have now hit the three-quarters of a mile mark.
Carl:
Well now I'm getting a lot of crackle. I can still make out what you're saying though, but it's quite quiet, in fact.
Pete:
OK, so we've hit the one mile mark, I've just asked our driver to pull over, and we're going to try switching the radio to one mile mark to see how this goes. At the moment, I'm talking to you on the Cobra, and I'm now going to switch over to the Motorola.
So we're sitting here at the one mile mark, one mile west of Carl. I'm now talking to you on the Motorola. Does this sound any clearer?
Carl:
Yes, the Motorola sounds somewhat clearer, it's not so harsh with the crackling. Where are you now, Pete?
Pete:
OK, so we're still at the one mile mark, and I'm now switching to the Mitex, which should be the more powerful of the three radios that we're using.
Carl:
And in fact come through nice and clear.
Pete:
OK, we're back on the move again. Now, just past the two and a half mile mark on the Cobra - are you able to hear me, Carl?
Carl:
Yep, coming through loud.
Pete:
OK, I'm going to get mobile, I'll check in at two-and-three-quarter miles.
(crackling)
Carl:
OK, I don't know what you were trying to tell me then, but I didn't get any of it. Over.
Pete:
OK, three and a half miles.
Carl:
So three and a half miles on the Mitex is coming through quite clear.
Pete:
OK, this is Pete talking ... four miles on the Mitex. Can you hear me on the Mitex at four miles?
Carl:
Well strangely, at four miles, it comes through loud and clear on the Mitex, this is the only one surviving the test at this point.
Pete:
We've proven that we can just about hear ... at four miles from one of these portable PMR ...
Carl:
Well, thank goodness for that - we're back in the warmth of the Frequency Car. Right then, what do you think of that, Pete?
Pete:
Yeah, interesting. Well clearly this device here, this Cobra, was pretty useless, it died after what - two miles?
Carl:
Yeah, about two miles.
Pete:
Then we had this here Motorola that probably did about two and a half before that really gave up the ghost.
Carl:
That was a shame, wasn't it?
Pete:
Then we've got this, the Mitex, which was the more powerful. Now we really got about four miles out of that before that started to go.
Carl:
Yeah, absolutely, which is a bit disappointing, I must confess, because I thought that was going to go on for a lot longer.
Pete:
Well, considering it's a five watt transmitter, and the other ones are only 0.5 watts, ten times more power, you'd expect a bit more range. I think that's probably proven that the five watt Mitex is the best of the bunch.
Carl:
Cool.
Pete:
So there you go. Of course, the get out with these walkie-talkies is when they say 12 kilometres, they're talking clear line of sight, no buildings in the way, in absolutely perfect conditions, which is very difficult to achieve.
Carl:
Yeah, but we did do quite well, didn't we?
Pete:
Yeah, pretty impressed. Of course, if you really want walkie-talkies with a more serious range, get yourself two pay-as-you-go phones from 3 with a 3 SIM, and you can talk UK to UK over Skype, for free, the best walkie-talkies around.
Carl:
Ah Roger, over and out.
Listen to FrequencyCast Show 51 - Walkie Talkies |
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