do you use walkie talkie on the mountain?

do they work better than cell phones? if you do, which one do you use?

I get heckled enough taking spills-no need for a walkie talkie

I've had a radio set about 10 years now. It all began in the days before cell phone coverage was any good on the hill. In some cases coverage still can be bad.
bring it along, but turned off.

I've had a couple of reasons to use it, since often ski patrol monitors 9-11, mostly for emergency. I would use it as a backup to a cell phone.

- If I'm solo in slack country and need help.
- If I'm in BC and one of us gets hurt, we can split up and still stay in touch. Ditto for hiking.
I've never used it, but it makes me feel better.

Far superior would be an beacon, but it's not in the budget. I've considered it for hiking, as I do go pretty deep but not for skiing as I don't get into avi areas.

A couple of minor reasons:
- I have friends that have a cottage a few miles from the resort, when cell phones still didn't work, I could reach the home base. Helpful if I came out somewhere and needed a pickup.

- I sometimes ski with mountain ambassadors, and they keep in touch using radios. They are constantly being reassigned, have to move around, we break apart and coordinate our meetings several times a day.
- When my kids were really young and they needed a lot of 1-1 (burnouts, meltdowns), if one of us split up to freeski and the other needed quick help.

I never use it to communicate with someone in the base lodge. I find it's faster and more efficient to just ski to the lodge and find them.

Generally I ski with it off, because when I ski, I like to disconnect.
Remember, most of the radios are "line of sight" communications distance, regardless of advertised distance claims.
BTW, my skullcandy headset has two plugs, one for the tunes, one for my radio, so the sound goes in my ear, not all over the slopes.

I have 6 of them and don't use them anymore. I find texting is the best. No need to repsond unitl you get on the lift of when you can get in a warm building. You don't get everyone elses coversations either and they don't get yours.

Works good and texts go though sometimes when cell phones don't. On a larger mountain with dense wooded areas I found Radios were not as good. Just my take.

Good points by Billski !

Just to add from my experience. I have a number of radio's aquired for use in event management and sports coaching. Head sets, and Vox set-up's. (Vox is talk, it goes on). While rugged set-up's, they are over ten years old.

We tried them pre-cell coverage, and as 1/4 mile licensed units, really didn't work all that well for average size or larger resorts. Good at King Pine, Loon not so much...

The license restrictions have changed, so there are better range units, at reasonable cost points.

One suggestion, is that texting on many carriers requires very little signal. Plus, will burst a transmission when you ski thru some coverage. The bad point of this is that many cell phones really grind thru battery life quickly while searching for coverage.

not really, once in a blue moon i'll throw it in the jacket...i do however always have a whistle with me just in case something happens esp in the woods...

We used to use them but since cell coverage has gotten much better where we ski, I haven't brought them in a while.

I have a scanner that I put on when I hear the fire whistle.. And it picks up the FRS stuff.... Funny stuff what gapers say on the hill....

I don't see them much anymore... I just text friends if I want to hook up...

Only use them in the BC...

Used to use the walkie talkies, but now since where I ski the vast majority of the time has good cell coverage, the relatively speaking bulkie walkie talkies have been replaced with the smaller cell phones

I have a large extended family group at the mountian and we all use one channel. Its a good way for us to all find each other or know who's out on the hill versus in the condos. This way everyone can keep an ear out for the kids. I have 2 sets of motorolas but I dont know the model number off hand and they are up in VT.

drjeff said:

Used to use the walkie talkies, but now since where I ski the vast majority of the time has good cell coverage, the relatively speaking bulkie walkie talkies have been replaced with the smaller cell phones

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Plus it's a pain in the arse to upload pics to Facebook with a walkie talkie.

RootDKJ said:

Plus it's a pain in the arse to upload pics to Facebook with a walkie talkie.

Click to expand...

It really is...

seems like every time I try to use them, they don't work.. battery gets too cold, wasn't charged, other person leaves them off, etc... I should probably just give them away to some kids, they were much more useful/fun as a toy....

RootDKJ said:

Plus it's a pain in the arse to upload pics to Facebook with a walkie talkie.

Click to expand...

There's an app for that.

Used to, but now cell coverage is consistent where i ski most often.

Only when I'm working.

Seriously, we have some motorola radios from a few years back, but I've yet to actually use them while skiing. I could see possibly using them when the kids get a little older and head out on their own...

Constantly now. Picked up a pair of Midland radios at the begining of the season. The gf likes to zone out when shes going down the mountain and I usually follow as I wait for her to fall so I can help. If I see she is choosing the wrong way down I give quick yell over the radio to the correct direction. We have in-ear pieces so its easy to use and hear each other with our helmets on. voice activation is awesome too so no hands needed.

Yep, can't always depend on phones and like to have 2ways in case I get separated from my wife or friends.

I carry one but keep it turned off. It's helpful to tune into the ambassador's channel to find out where the goods are.

Kids are pre-teen - old enough to go out a bit on their own, but I still need to know where they are so we have 4 Motorolas. They've worked great at Ragged and Sugarloaf - but not so much at Gunstock.

Even just having the parents spread around the mountain with different sets of kids, it makes coordinating breaks and hand offs easier.