The Rocky Talkie delivered in every sport and setting from the Coast Mountain backcountry to Squamish crags to oceans to hayfields.
Words & photos :: Feet Banks
Full disclosure: Rocky Talkie’s PR company sent me two free set-ups to review. I spent eight months testing them (which I bet is way longer than they were expecting).
Verdict
The Rocky Talkie is freaking awesome! 5 out of 5 recommend.
Fine Print
These are excellent consumer walkie-talkies. For professional photographers, filmers/crews, or anyone who needs to connect to marine/aviation/Search and Rescue/ski patrol or Forest Service Road frequencies (or any other VHF frequencies), there are more suitable radios on the market. For a bunch of buddies or a family that wants to get out there and giv’r while maintaining crisp, clear contact with each other…Rocky Talkies are exceptional.
Backstory
I come from a golden era where kids, for the first time in human history, would head out into the bush/yard/street/wherever to “play walkie-talkie.” That was the whole game: Go outside and communicate from a distance. This was novel and exciting because we were only a generation away from the classic “tin cans on a string” long-range communication system (and the era where they were called “tin cans”). Truckers had CB radios wired into their rigs (“Breaker 1-9, Breaker 1-9. If you give me 40 acres I’ll turn this rig around,”) but in my youth the only people with portable walkie-talkies were TV’s the A-Team, the characters in GI Joe, and probably the actual military. This is also a time when, if you can imagine, all telephones were attached to a wall with a cord.
I come from a golden era where kids, for the first time in human history, would head out into the bush/yard/street/wherever to “play walkie-talkie.”
(Editorial Tangent: The first walkie-talkie was probably invented in 1937 by a Canadian radio engineer named Donald Hings, who called his system a “Packset.” But around the same time, an American named Alfred J. Gross also invented a walkie-talkie-esque system, and the forerunners to Motorola created the first system actually named Walkie Talkie for the US military sometime in or around 1940.)
But no kids of those eras had any of these things. The first walkie-talkies for (rich) kids arrived in the 1970s, but and the crème de la crème came out in 1982: The Nasta G.I. Joe Walkie Talkies. They cost about $25 for two (9-volt batteries not included) and had a range of about 56-60 feet (at best, if memory serves). And they ruled! These solid-state gizmos were totally enough to get outside and “play walkie-talkie.”
My how times have changed. Cell phones have long kicked walkie-talkie excitement to the curb for folks in urban locales, but one place the little handheld devices of joy still shine is in out the wilderness.
So to the wilds we shall go. I took the Rocky Talkie skiing on Whistler Blackcomb and ski-touring in the Coast Mountains backcountry. I took them climbing on the Squamish crags, fishing on the rivers, boating on the ocean, and used them to keep a six-year-old in communication (and entertained) as her mom toured me around a couple hundred acres of Pemberton hayfield. The Rocky Talkie delivered in every sport and setting (except in urban areas under high-voltage power lines).
Field Details
Battery Life: This is important (though not the most important) and I don’t have much scientific data here because the truth is my Rocky Talkies never ran out of batteries. Sure, the longest I had them out was on a two-night ski touring trip, but even in the cold weather—no issues. Official Rocky Talkie technical specs claim the specialized lithium-ion battery provides over 3-5 days of battery life (though how much use constitutes a “day” is never clarified). The higher number is likely in “low power” mode, which sacrifices a bit of range for battery life, but in any case, I Rock my Talkie in high power mode and it’s still always had enough battery power to suit my overnight trip needs.
Range: This matters the most, and in a straight line (like on the water) Rocky Talkie is claiming max ranges of over 50 km, which is way farther than I can see so at that distance I would likely use a marine radio or cellphone. But hey, apparently it’s possible thanks to the Rocky’s 2-watt power (the max you can use without a license). I will say for small boats that don’t have proper marine radios, this is an excellent way to keep in touch with your flotilla mates.
At closer range, like from one ski hill to the other, this thing delivers. The span between the tops of Whistler and Blackcomb is around 4.5 km (2.7 miles) and I was able to hear my son loud and clear from the other side of the valley.
Having said that, as awesome as they are, those 2-watt radio waves cannot turn corners or blow through an entire mountain or ridgeline of granite and dirt. So if my kid was on the south aspect of the mountain and I was on the north, with an entire physical mountain between us, I couldn’t reach him. This just seems to be the nature of radio waves, not any fault of the radios.
Durability: There are stories online about how you can drag these talkies behind your truck for half a day and they will still perform. I did not try that. What I did try was taking it winter steelhead fishing in the rain/sleet and—as advertised—the Rocky Talkie is tough, sturdy, and weather- and splash-proof. (Note: It is apparently not submersible but you can’t talk underwater anyway. I did not try this.)
A radio while fishing is awesome because you are typically out of earshot with your fishing partner so a radio is a nice way to not have to scream at each other when you want to say stuff like “fish on” or “hey do you see that grizzly bear coming up behind you?”
Note: the attachable hand mic is also splash and weatherproof and the Rocky Talkies come standard-equipped with lightweight Mammut carabiners that make them easy to clip on and not lose! (This also makes them awesome for climbing multi-pitch routes when your partner is out of sight.)
Clear Air vs. Linking Up: Equally important as anything else covered thus far: Channel functionality. There’s nothing worse than a radio that’s constantly cackling with other people’s conversations (and they are hearing yours). The Rocky Talkie has 121 channels, 22 of which can link with other consumer radios (by matching the channel number and privacy code) or as many other Rocky Talkies as you want.
As mentioned above, the Rocky Talkie transmits on FRS license-free frequencies (462-467MHz) and is part of the UHF band. It does not pick up the VHF forestry, Search and Rescue, marine or NOAA weather channels.
Miscellaneous Info: The battery lasts forever but an empty one will take just five hours to recharge (via USB-C). The Talkie will function in temps ranging from +40 to -30 degrees Celsius. And, as mentioned, lower power mode lets you power down the transmitter to save battery life if you are in closer range with the other talkies on a long trip.
Last Word
This is the best consumer radio I have ever used—good for any sport/activity I threw at them. It lived up to the quality assurances made by the marketing material (though I didn’t test it over a 50 km line-of-sight distance, here out west that has to be on the ocean; we have too many mountains). So there you go, now you know about the Rocky Talkie, and as the G.I. Joe heroes of my youth used to say, “And knowing is half the battle.”
Yo Joe!
(Side Note: Since 2020, Rocky Talkie has earmarked $2 from every radio sold to help supplement the costs of volunteer Search and Rescue teams across America. Via its annual Search and Rescue Awards, Rocky Talkie has donated $146K in funding across 19 volunteer organizations. So that’s pretty awesome. Maybe Canadian SAR teams will be next!)
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