How do walkie-talkies work?

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Walkie-talkies are small, portable devices for communication back and forth between two people. Usually they are sold in a set because one walkie-talkie by itself doesn’t really do much! You need someone else with another walkie-talkie to talk to!

Walkie-talkies are actually two-way radios.  If you listen to music on the radio, you’re listening to a special radio signal sent as energy through the air to your radio. Your radio knows how to turn the signal into sound that can be played through a speaker.  

Walkie-talkies are just like radios except they work in two directions!  You can hear someone talking, but you can also talk back to them! It’s all done with radio waves that travel through the air that are picked up by another person’s walkie-talkie!     

Over and Out! 

There is some special language that can be used with walkie-talkies. Unlike phones, walkie-talkies don’t work in both directions at the same time. You have to wait for someone to finish what they are saying before you can respond. 

To let someone know that you are finished with your sentence, you can say, “Over.” The word “over” lets the other person know that they can go ahead and say something. When they’re finished, they’ll say, “Over,” too. 

When the conversation is finished, you can say, “Over and out.” That means the conversation is over.

If someone gives you information over a walkie-talkie and you want to let them know you received or understood what they said, you can say “Roger!” 

For fun, try using “Roger,” “Over,” and “Over and out” in a conversation!