Midland - X-TALKER 38-Mile, 36-Channel FRS 2-Way Radios (Pair)

Having never owned a 2-way radio I I had questions on set up. I found that i could not chat,or watch a video ,the only communication was by e-mail,I was frustrated. After spending two hours on you tube and reading the manual I am understanding the operation of the 2-way radios. Do I like the X-Talker, very much. I plan to use it On hiking and sking trips in the mountains out west. So far a range of 3 miles they have work well, I am pleased. I just wish I could of talked with a person from midland on set up.

I was able to talk from inside my house to the inside of a garage about a mile away. Once you step out of the urban environment the possibilities really open up. I am able to pick up the weather stations out of Pittsburgh at my home, about 25 min SE of town

I wanted a pair of walkie talkies that I could use around the house and with the grand kids as well. I chose Midland because I was very satisfied with my HH54 weather radio, which I've had for about 6 years. I found that like the weather radio, the walkie talkies work very well with the permanently attached smaller antennas. (Type accepted) Right out of the box I noticed how well the T71's received other stations in the local area that I had previously heard on my Alinco handheld. There was no "intermod" interference on any channels. I tried them with my wife and they went through the high rise & out over a mile or so, with audio that was loud & clear on low power channel 8. Note that on channels 8 - 14 there seems to be less interference from more powerful stations in the area due to the mandatory low power settings. The 1 amp rechargeable batteries are a plus. If you need more power you've got 2 watts that you didn't have under the old FRS rules. High power channels are 1-7 and 15-22 but you may be sharing with GMRS stations in your area. In that case you can use the private codes that are available with this series. I did turn off the "roger beep" and BP key tones because they were annoying. The weather radio feature can come in handy to get the latest up to the moment info from NOAA weather. The weather radio alerts & warnings are better than the emergency alerts you get on the cell phone, in my opinion. The radio does not however, support the use of S.A.M.E or County codes, so you will have to listen carefully to the information from NOAA to see if it actually applies to your local area or not because NOAA weather radio is a region wide broadcast. One thing the instruction book didn't cover or I didn't notice were the extra channels, 23-36. These are just repeats from the original 22 with a simplification of the quiet codes. Also, these radios cannot access any repeaters that you will hear on some of the upper channels. And now on to Customer Service....There was a battery issue. One of the packs would go dead prematurely so I contacted Midland and replacement batteries are on the way. All in all a good value for the money and no license is required: Also there is no "skip" interference on UHF like the kind you get on CB radio plus the FM modulation is clean and quiet. I can honestly tell you that these radios will get a lot of use in our family. Dan

Have always been a huge fan of midland products through friends and finally had the chance to grab some for myself. These X Talkers work great and don't have any of that static you get with competitors. One feature we love is to be able to charge it using USB, other radios only use the docking station and that's really inconvenient. Highly recommend these!

We use Two-Way Radios around our Feed and Seed Store to aid in our communication and be able to load customers quickly and efficiently. We really like the X-talker Radios! They are easy to use, dependable and affordable. (Just don't drop them in water.....) We appreciate Midland because we know we can trust their customer service. Thanks Midland for another great product.