Walkie-talkies can be essential during an outdoor adventure

Real overlanders usually use ham radios for communication, said Nicolas Villescas of New Mexico-Expedition at a recent rigs and coffee meetup in Rio Rancho.

But there are simpler ways to start talking on the road if you have two or more vehicles.

If you have cellphone service, you are ready to communicate as long as you have a car charger. But the whole point of adventuring is to get off the grid.

Low-power walkie-talkies work well between vehicles. When you are within a few hundred feet of each other, you can pick a channel and start talking. This is better than chasing down your partners in adventure, rolling down the windows and screaming at each other. For these kiddie walkie-talkies, be sure to have plenty of batteries. Though they have limited range, often measured in yards rather than miles, you can get these devices at any big box store in town for $20 or less.

And be sure both rigs have your walkie-talkies turned on. (Yep, and from personal experience if you don’t turn ‘em on, you’ll be speeding up and using hand-gestures to get the other adventurers’ attention before any conversation.)

These are also good to keep connected to the kids at the campsite or on short hikes.

A step up is the Rocky Talkie. The radios cost about $110 each. Rocky Talkies have a longer range — as much as 35 miles with line-of-sight across mountains and up to 3 miles in forest and hills — a battery life of up to four days and do not require a license to operate.

For longer range, you need an FCC license. You can get more powerful communication devices, but the devices must be registered by the government, which requires paperwork but not training.

Walkie-talkies may or may not require a license, depending on the type of radio and the frequency they operate on. Family Radio Service, or FRS, walkie-talkies do not require a license, while General Mobile Radio Service, or GMRS, radios do. The GRMS have a longer range.

I have Midland Walkie Talkies that I purchased using credit card points. These have a range of a couple of miles and are GMRS.

I had to obtain a license from the FCC to operate them legally. It was as simple as any government process, cost $35, and covers you and your immediate family for 10 years.

Quality of signal is all about line-of-sight, so if you can attach an antenna to your rig and raise it toward the sky you will get better range no matter if you are using a GRMS or a ham setup, said Lyle Tanner at an instructional session at Overland Expo West in Flagstaff.

Tanner, a solutions architect at Cisco Systems and outdoors enthusiast, helps set up network communications as a volunteer during natural disasters. He said he uses all means of communications on the road including cellphone data networks, GRMS and Starlink dishes, both regular and mini, which use less power. He often combines these signals to create more stable internet connections for mapping as well as video calls.

And, he said, if you are atop a mountain peak and can see from one peak to another, you should be able to talk clearly to another GRMS radio or even a Rocky Talkie many miles away.

For ham radios, you need both training and an FCC license. Villescas’ rig includes a ham radio setup connected to his electrical system, including an external antenna.

Ham radios are low power and work anywhere. Find more information at the American Radio Relay League, the national association for amateur radio.

“Basic study materials for passing the FCC test and getting your initial license usually cost less than $40,” ARRL says on its website.

It usually costs less than $200 to get your own first radio and start talking to other hams, the group says.