Cobra microTALK MT525-2 8-channel PMR

My parents never let me have a set of walkie talkies as I apparently never had a valid reason for getting one, I completely disagreed with this, but they never gave in!!!!!! In the months preceding Christmas two events happened to me which would change my life from being one full of sadness and deprivation without a walkie talkie, to being one of happiness and joy filled with walkie talkie fun and games.

The first event was that we ...
...in the area and Greater Manchester Police, this was great I could use official call signs and language like "{my call sign} to all units in {suburb in south central Manchester}, group of 7 Mid 20's IC1 males, suspected of taking drugs in the toilet heading your way". This was fantastic and joyous though not as much fun as you have to be official and use official language all the time boo hoo…… and especially since there is absolutely no ... more

My parents never let me have a set of walkie talkies as I apparently never had a valid reason for getting one, I completely disagreed with this, but they never gave in!!!!!! In the months preceding Christmas two events happened to me which would change my life from being one full of sadness and deprivation without a walkie talkie, to being one of happiness and joy filled with walkie talkie fun and games.

The first event was that we got a pub watch radio linking us to other bars in the area and Greater Manchester Police, this was great I could use official call signs and language like "{my call sign} to all units in {suburb in south central Manchester}, group of 7 Mid 20's IC1 males, suspected of taking drugs in the toilet heading your way". This was fantastic and joyous though not as much fun as you have to be official and use official language all the time boo hoo…… and especially since there is absolutely no swearing allowed. The power is fantastic though heh heh even though it is not for abuse.

So I mentioned to my absolutely wonderful and fantastic girlfriend that having ones for internal pub use would be great. We could call each other of one of us was in the cellar and the other needed a barrel change at the bar, this would result in an increase in customer service. It also means that we can slip out to the beer garden for a quick drink and be called back if it got busy another increase in customer service. What I neglected to mention to her was that it would mean that we could be totally puerile and childish as well, but I think she suspected that was the real motive. The result of this was that she got me these babies for Crimbo. So please forgive me if I don't tell you where to get them and how much they cost, but a quick search on sites like google will tell you all that information so there………

Ok for your money you get two "Cobra microTALK MT525-2 8-channel PMR" with a range of 3Km. Using them is pretty self explanatory you slip in 4 AAA heavy duty batteries into each radio and press the power button and you are ready to start transmitting. The volume control has 8 settings from fairly quiet to quite loud, and the channel you are on is selected by pressing the channel up / down buttons.

You have 8 main channels and the first 2 are apparently used by the emergency service in France. Beyond on each channel you have 36 sub channels that you can use to ensure privacy, you access these by pressing the Mode/lock button then the channel up/down buttons, an absolutely great feature if you ask me.

To transmit you press the call button and speak into the thing with it being about an inch and a half from your gob. The sound quality around the pub is fantastic and we have tested it up to a kilometer with some loss in quality but it is still very clear provided there are not too many hills and buildings between you. There is also a call button which rings the other unit so if you are in a noisy environment you can wait for a response before transmitting your message.

Onto battery life it has a power saving setting which it automatically drops down to after about 30 seconds, which is a good idea. We have used ours for about 40 hours so far with about 90% of that time being on power saving and the batteries are still going strong, but that is with ultra heavy duty batteries, I suspect that non-heavy duty batteries will become severely depleted. You can also but a battery pack for them or use rechargeable batteries.

oops sorry I forgot to mention that the case is a very sturdy plastic casing with a belt clip and wriststrap.

I am very fond of these wonderful little babies and will never grow tired of transmitting the word bum-nugget or the phrase old mans piles. If you want a good robust walkie talkie then these babies are the kind of thing you want, for hours of puerile fun and games.
 

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