Opinions

"Walkie-Talkies" in Disney World
By Bruce Sherman - July 29 2004

The kids are getting older and want to be more on their own, but your afraid of loosing them in the park, what to do?

Half of your travel party wants to go on Space Mountain, the other half It's a Small World, and neither wants to do the other, what to do?

You are watching TV and you see the commercial where the wives are at the theme park and the husbands are playing golf. They are using radios to keep in touch, Is that your answer? Maybe

I am going to try and explain here what and how those radios work.

Let me say right off, if you expect to be able to talk from Epcot to someone playing golf, sorry, it won't happen.

All radios like that are line of sight radios; don't plan on being able to talk from one park to another. Be happy that you will be able to chat in the same park, and you will 90% of the time. Once on Main Street near the castle, I was talking to the rest of my travel party just leaving the Contemporary on the monorail. This is more exception then the rule of how far these things will work.

Line of sight Elevation and distance.

Line of site means if you can see the place, you can talk to someone there. Buildings and natural objects will weaken your signal, if not block it completely. Radios work best in a open flat field, this is where they get the readings that these radios will work in a 2 mile radius. In my example given previously, I spoke about talking to someone at the Contemporary from Main Street. This was possible due to the person being high off the ground in the monorail. Since they were very high off the ground, their line of sight was greater then being on the ground. If the Skyway still existed, you would have total coverage throughout the park, and them some. Here is a idea, Tomorrow Transit Authority rides on a raised track above the ground. This is the best place now for your signal to get as far as is possible. But it may not always be the distance that prevents you from talking to each other, but congestion on the channel. More on that later.

Look for radios that have more channels, not sub-channels, or what ever they call them. The more powerful the radio, the longer distance it will work over, they are rated in watts. Remember milli watts is 1/1000 of a watt, so don't get confused about that. Also remember that the more powerful the radio, the faster you will drain the batteries, so rechargeable batteries should be on the list of items to purchase with the radios. Rechargeable batteries should be recharged overnight everyday.

Rechargeable batteries

There are several types of rechargeable batteries available. The two most popular are Nickel Cadmium (Ni cads) and Nickel Metal Hydrides (NiMH) Nickel Metal Hydrides are the kind to get. The age old problem with Ni Cads were, if not properly used, (discharged and recharged totally and frequently) they loose some of their capacity to store electrical energy. NiMH doesn't have this problem and can go for long periods of non use and it doesn't effect its capacity to store electrical energy. Batteries can be recharged in as little as 15 minutes to overnight, depending on battery and charger types.

Some Helpful hints.

What starts out as a semi private channel can change into a very crowded channel right away when you are talking about hundreds to thousands of people trying to share 14 or 21 channels. If you decide to go the radio route, have a plan like to change to the radio channel of the hour, 1:00, channel 1, 2:00 channel 2... so on. Keep the same sub-channel, will talk more about sub-channels in a minute.

Plan a check in time at a certain time of the hour every hour. Also talk to other members on the radio just before entering rides, so everyone knows where everyone is else in the park. I am sure you would be disturbed by people talking while you are enjoying a show or ride, as others would be for you, so warn your party that you are turning your radio off while inside until the show or ride is over. On the other hand, treat these as party lines and have some fun. While waiting for Fantasmic to start, my niece had lots of fun talking to other people.

Sub-channels and congestion

I was trying to avoid getting into how these things work, as it gets very technical, but the idea that if you choose a sub-channel (which really isn't) stops people from listening to your conversation is false, if you set the radio without a sub-channel, you can listen to everyone who is using that channel. Remember, there is never privacy on these radios, never...NEVER give out information that you don't want to share with the whole world.

The term sub-channel is very misleading; it is the same channel that everyone else who is tuned to the same channel is using. If you and 100 people are on channel 1, then you are sharing channel 1 with 100 people, no matter what the sub-channel you are using. Does using a different sub-channel give you more privacy and non interference from other on the same channel? Look at this simple diagram:

A         B                               C

You are person A trying to talk to person C, but person B is on the same channel talking at the same time, but on a different sub-channel. Since person B is closer to you., has a more powerful signal to your radio then person C, you wont hear person C at all

The way sub-channels operate is this, and I hope I explain it well enough for people to understand, when you set a sub-channel, you are adding a very low pitch tone to your signal. When your signal hits another radio that is set to the same channel and the same sub-channel, it will pass it through so you can talk, if it receives a signal with a different low pitch tone (sub-channel), it will reject it, you wont even know this is happening.

What kind to get? While there are lots of different manufacturers that sell Family Radio System (FRS) radios, I've used Motorola radios for years, they are known to be very ruggedly built, drop them, and they still work.

Bruce Sherman
Aka Capt_Nemo

EDITORS NOTE: FRS is a license free frequency band. Other radios that are sold right along side of FRS are GMRS and require a license to operate. Check out the FCC site for more information and fees for GMRS. Now does everyone actually get the license???......