Walkie-talkies can be invaluable to enable staff to stay in touch in bars, clubs and restaurants. They are especially useful for security / door supervisors, as well as staff in general. Ski holidays often involve being in areas where mobile phones don’t work – or are incredibly expensive.

You can also use the preassigned bands on your scanner. Most police radio scanners come with a list of popular frequencies in your locality such as the police and fire department. These can be accessed by pressing the “band” button on your device. In other devices, you will need to press the “mode” button.

With the most basic walkie-talkies, it is clear that everyone around you can hear your conversation. You can also use text messaging on most models of digital two-way radios for true one-to-one communication when privacy is really needed. The last issue is the location you use your radio in within your workplace.

When testing Walkie Talkies that were transmitting with a magnetic reader the number was between 4.4mG and 8.3mG. I would consider these high levels and thus I would say that yes, walkie talkies do emit EMF radiation and a decently high amount.

For officers and others in public safety and security who depend on their two‑way radios as a lifeline, the news that they can be hacked can be very disturbing. There’s no magic formula, but even as hacking increases, the technology designed to keep frequencies secure and safe is evolving.

NO WI-FI? Fortunately, there are apps that allow you to use your cell phone as a walkie-talkie or two-way radio, some while on Wi-Fi and others so long as you have a network connection—even if it’s just 3G. Below is a list of iPhone- and Android-compatible applications to download before Hurricane Irma hits.

Instead of dialing the phone, or using a two-way radio, your phone can serve as a Walkie-Talkie using the internet or mobile data. Zello is available for iOS, Android, PC, and Windows downloads here and it works cross-platform.

The Best Walkie Talkies

• The Best Overall. Midland. GXT1000VP4. See Price at Amazon.
• The Budget Pick. Tacklife. MTR01. See Price at Amazon.
• The Kids’ PIck. Floureon. Two-Way Radio. See Price at Amazon.

Turns out, Sprint still cares about Nextel. Sprint shut down the old Nextel network in 2013 so they could re-use those radio frequencies for LTE coverage. None of the remaining networks have the push-to-talk feature built-in. None of the remaining networks have the push-to-talk feature built-in.

Why did the Sprint/Nextel ‘push to talk’ phone lose interest? – Quora. Because; It uses a unique IDEN protocol rather than the standard GSM / CDMA systems in use by other carriers. It was slower and clunkier.

Due to the difference in technology, users of the ReadyLink service were never able to make or receive push-to-talk calls with users of the iDEN technology. By 2009, Sprint began phasing out QChat to again focus on marketing iDEN devices. Nextel also offers a feature on some of their phones, marketed as DirectTalk.