Teddy

My college room mates and I are going to France in April and want to bring Walkie Talkies so we don't loose each other. Is there any reason we shouldn't do this? I think seven of us will be there and we won't always be able to stay together. We thought the Walkie Talkies would help.

Ed

Frequency assignments for such use are usually different from country to country. Likely the use of radios bought in the US will be illegal. <BR> <BR>More important than illegal, their use may interfere with other, legal uses, such as an EMT calling back to the hospital for a critical injury. <BR> <BR>Better idea: purchase your radios in France where they'll be legal. Unfortunately they'll likely be illegal here, though. <BR> <BR>Motorola's website has a customer service section, and you'll find an FAQ for two-way radios there. <BR> <BR>For more info, use Fodor's search function with radio as the keyword. You'll find a thread from 2-3 weeks ago (#9 when I searched) with extensive comments on the subject. <BR> <BR>Ed

Lee

Teddy, I've never heard of this one before. You won't be climbing mountains, will you? <BR> <BR>We've been to Europe countless times and haven't lost anyone yet. When you go into some large place and separate, like the Louvre', just choose a central meeting place at a particular time. We have a rule where we never leave a building unless all of us are together or meet back at the place we got off the trolley, had lunch, whatever. If everyone knows the name and address of where you are staying, you can't go wrong. <BR> <BR>Walkie-talkies would certainly blow the minds of the French, I think, and they've seen it all.

Kavey

How about cheap mobile phones? <BR>If you buy the really cheap ready boxed ones instead of the ones with line rental (when you get to france) it shouldnt be too expensive. <BR> <BR>I cant imagine it would be acceptable for you to use walkietaklies powerful enough for you to talk across Paris! <BR> <BR>And as someone said it may interfere with emergency services radios? <BR> <BR>kavey

Gina

It does strike me that if this were really a useful way to avoid losing your traveling companion(s) that it would be in fairly common use...and I've never heard of it or seen anyone on this or any other travel forum (and I waste a lot of time on 'em). <BR> <BR>I think Lee's right. You're not going to lose each other. You'll quite possibly get separated every so often, which, IMO, isn't such a bad thing; all seven of you together all the time will be too much closeness after awhile. Just make a plan when you leave your lodgings each morning: "If we get split up at the Louvre today, we'll meet underneath the pyramid at noon." Then do it again next time you all meet up. "If we get split up" (or if we choose to split up and go see different things, which you'll do), "then we'll all meet back at the hotel at six and decide what we want to do for dinner." <BR> <BR>You really don't need to be joined at the hip by walkie-talkies, and you're likely to find them more trouble than they're worth. Depending on how "full-service" your hotel is, you can also just leave messages for one another at the desk, calling in to leave or receive them. Buying phone cards for the pay phones in order to facilitate messages would be infinitely easier than a managing a set of seven walkie-talkies, and cheaper than renting cell phones for seven.

Ed

For Gina and Lee: <BR> <BR>On Teddy's behalf, these "Talk Abouts" or "Walk Abouts" are becoming quite popular. Motorola (and others) are putting them out like there's no tomorrow. This is a relatively new facility called, I think, FRS, Family Radio Service. <BR> <BR>Whether useful in traveling or not is question, I suppose. They claim a range of "up to" 2 miles over unobstructed territory. In actual practice a limit of about 1/4 mile is not atypical. Nonetheless lots of folks are finding them useful in shopping malls, Sam's Clubs, stadiums, zoos, cars traveling together, etc. <BR> <BR>Your suggestions are constructive, of course. It's up to Teddy, though, to decide what's useful for their trip. <BR> <BR>And by the way the last (of two or more) threads on this forum on the subject ran just three weeks ago. People &gt;are&lt; using these on trips, and considering their use while traveling. <BR> <BR>Ed

Gina

Ed, I stand corrected about these systems being in regular use among travelers then. I certainly am familiar with people using cell phones to locate one half of a group arriving late at a concert or whatever, but that seems to me to be a somewhat different situation. <BR>On an overseas trip with this many people, I still think radios or cellphones or whatever would be more trouble than they're worth. After all, unless you can know in advance who's going to get separated from whom, all seven of the group will need their own phones or radios. I just have these mental pictures of seven college guys standing on different levels of the Louvre all trying to call each other. "Let's meet in front of the pyramid at noon" seems infinitely less complicated. Plus, it's one more thing to worry about losing or having pickpocketed from you. Call me old-fashioned (yoicks, now that's not a word that's usually used to apply to me), but in this situation I just can't help thinking that the simple, non-electronic answers might be more useful. <BR> <BR>And of course it's up to Teddy to decide what's useful for his trip. But he posted here asking for advice, which is what I believe we've all offered based on our own opinions.

Rex

Dr. Betty and I both commented onthis subject earlier this fall, both of us having had a positive experience with walkie-talkies. <BR> <BR>I bought mine in Germany for use in Europe (not actually realizing that this was the "right" thing to do - - I actually thought we were stupid for overpaying!) <BR> <BR>In my case, the walkies were very valuable for our group of 16, traveling in two 9-passenger vans. It made enjoyable simple chit-chat between the vans, planning bathroom breaks, commenting on things we saw out windows, etc. It also helped us "keep together" - - effectively, the walkie range was just a tiny bit more than our visual range of each other. When the front van couldn't "hear" the second, it was evident that (I) needed to slow down; likewise, the "back" van knew there was a need to keep its eyes peeled and/or speed up when we got out of range. <BR> <BR>They were less useful on foot, but did help when the group broke up into some smaller (twosomes and threesomes) in an unfamiliar town (specifically Aix-en-Provence) where we broke up for an afternoon of a day trip. <BR> <BR>I will let Dr. Betty speak for herself how her walkies were useful to her family. <BR>

Gina

Rex, that's interesting. How many did you have? Were there ever any problems with losing, dropping, breaking, etc? I can imagine they might be of better use in trying to keep van groups together on a highway, where one wrong turn might split you up for good. (Whoops! There go Fred and Ralph off to the Riviera! Hope they enjoy the sun...)

frank

The only legal ones (for EC) are expensive. <BR>Mobile phones are cheaper, but you can't pretend you're a cop.

Patti Suttle

I agree with Rex totally. In fact, that is what my husband and I had in mind for next summer on our Ireland, London & Paris trip-but mainly for the Ireland part. We talked about bringing our small "walkie talkies" and using them in our 2 rented vans in Ireland-we'll be a group of 10. My husband and I have driven there before but our friends have not-we thought we could give them a "heads up" sometimes along the road, "check out the cattle dog at 3 o'clock", and just have some laughs all together via the walkie talkies. Not sure what we will do now. <BR>Thank you for all the information. <BR>Patti

Rex

Some quick responses to Gina, Frank and Patti: <BR> <BR>Yes, of course, we occasionally had some problems with transmission/reception. the solution was always just get a little closer. But this was still a big improvement over getting side-by-side (on the highway, for example) and "yelling" van to van. The navigators almost always did the talking to each other. Almost never driver to driver. We bought three units, because we originally thought we might want a separate 4 passenger sedan (but never did that). <BR> <BR>Expensive? Yes, but all things are relative. We spent about $90 per walkie talkie (easily double or triple what similar units might cost in the US), but amortized over 16 travelers, that seemed trivial. Still much cheaper than worrying about the cost of talk "by the minute" on a cell phone. We often used them for simple "cutting up" - - which wouldn't have happened if "air time" expense had been a consideration. And we passed on the $45 (each) rechargers. Ordinary batteries worked fine for over a week per set. <BR> <BR>They seem like very good quality and we still use them here in the US, illegal or not. They're nice and small; fit easily into a jacket pocket. <BR> <BR>Best wishes, <BR> <BR>Rex

Debbie

Teddy...We went to France in August...we brought our Motorola talk abouts with us...they were quite handy at the airport and while in Paris. (dont know the legalities about them, as no one could help us with that question). I say take them, worse comes to worse, you leave them in your suitcase!

Joel

Good grief!! Talk about much ado about nothing! Bring the damned walkie-talkies and have fun! The Thought Police are not out and about!

Bill

Maybe you guys could all wear the same color shirts?

Rex

to the top - - for traveler... <BR> <BR>Postscript: If this forum had an easier way to locate and direct readers to a specific (previous) posting by a unique identifier (timestamp), it would not be necessary to top (and repeat) information so tediously. This is my new crusade, and I am thinking about adding this postscript (when applicable) to every new reply I make here. If you agree with me, then please write to Danny Mangin or David Downing - - [email protected] - - and encourage them to move forward with this improvement (and any others they have up their sleeves) to this best-on-the-web travel forum! <BR>

susan

My question is: you are college roommates? Where do you go to college that you haven't yet learned the difference between lose and loose? I understand why you need walkie talkies since you haven't even mastered the English language yet.

Kathleen

Two years ago I traveled with my son, and extended family in another car across Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. We would never have kept track of each other without the ship to shore marine radios we borrowed from our sailboat. It was great, but illegal. My son and I found had our luggage xrayed on departure in Frankfurt, and about 10 police descended on us to see if we were terrorists. Now planning to use our new motorola units in Europe this summer, hopefully with less hoopla.

StCirq

Walkie-talkies brought from American for use in France are illegal, as they interfere with the frequencies used by emergency fire and police. I would urge you not to take them, or to purchase French ones. While your chances of being caught with them may be slim, you may be heavily fined if you are, and the penalty for using them in such a way as actually to interfere with an emergency operation is not something I'd want to contemplate happening to me on vacation.

frank

An earlier poster advised just to use the illegal radios. <BR>Please note that these radios cause cardiac emergency teams in hospitals to scramble, as well as screwing up other services. <BR>I've seen legal ones on sale at Glasgow airport.