Buying two way radio from UK or US

[SteveW]

Buy the ones that sit in a cradle and can be recharged.. we bought the cheapy ones and they work great but eat batteries. Bought a set of the cradle type and just stick them on charge when back at the villa and they are good for the next 24 hours. (from memory they were around $40 from Walmart)

[McjohnjM]

We bought our in the UK and found no problems using them in the States, we were not on any emergency wave length either, we were picking up other tourist who also had radios on our wave length.

Kim Mc

[blott]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by McjohnjM
We bought our in the UK and found no problems using them in the States, we were not on any emergency wave length either, we were picking up other tourist who also had radios on our wave length.

Kim Mc[/quote]You will have been on the, I think if I remember correctly, the coastguard frequency whether you picked up anything or not.

Please don't do this as it's illegal.

[McjohnjM]

Hi blott,
how would we find out if the were on this station, we have used the radios many times whilst over in Florida but would not wish to do it again is we knew it was illegal.

Kim Mc

[blott]

The emergency services are allocated frequency bands, both in the UK and in the USA. Two way radios (walkie talkies) are also allocated frequency bands in both countries. The problem is that the two countries have different frequency bands so the bands used for walkie talkies in the UK are not the same ones used in the USA.

UK WT frequencies are on USA emergency services (I think it's the Coastguard from memory) bands and USA WT frequencies are on one of the emergency services bands in the UK (I think I remember Police).

It doesn't necessarily mean that because you didn't get interrupted when using your WT that it's not on a 'not to be used' band, it just means that the particular one you were on wasn't being used at the very time you were using it.

We did quite a bit of research on the forum about this some time ago so if you have a search you may be able to find the relevant thread(s).

[McjohnjM]

Thanks for that, we will do a search to ensure we are not doing anything illegal.

Kim Mc

[steph_goodrum]

This link should explain the frequencies and why you can't use the radios in either country.

http://www.amherst.co.uk/walkie-talk...-technical.htm

[Stephen and Pam]

We picked up a pair from radio shack on a special last time out and work up to 15 miles only cost $55 and have a dual charge stand and a charged battery life of 72 hours
We leave ours in home for guests to use in Florida.