Using US bought walkie talkies in UK

tiff

We recently went to Florida and bought some walkie talkies for our sons birthday 10 mile range for $19.97, cheapest ones in Argos are £25. We bought them but my bil now tells me they might be illegal here.

Can anyone help, could they be illegal, should we not use them?

marleyboy

They should be legal over here, the only thing that could make them illigal would be if the frequencies were the same as say the Police or Ambulance frequencies. and as far as I am aware, this is not the case.

If they are FM Citizen Bnd (CB Radio) there is a licence infringement and therefore could be illigal. You would notice that if you could recieve transmissions from other CB radios. If however they are as I suspect Limited to just the two Walkie Talkies. They are perfectly legal and safe to use, meaning you need only test the range, by sending one of your Sons on a train ride for 10 miles. As far as I know, your safe with them.

navig8r

They probably work on the American Family radio channel..different frequency to ours and are illegal to use over here but are better because less peeps are on them.

Dave

boxst

Hello

They are illegal to use, although I have a pair and there has not been any problems.

Steve

tiff

Thanks for your replies everyone, I guess we'll have to take the chance, will mainly use them for camping.

Darksun

Look at the technical specs, then contact OfCom with the frequency ranges (who took over from the Radio Authority a couple of years ago). They should be able to advise you on the legality. If they're illegal, then it's at your own risk you use them. There shouldn't be a problem unless it interfers with another service, in which case you could find yourself with a visit from the police and a day in court

Hintza

Darksun wrote:

Look at the technical specs, then contact OfCom with the frequency ranges (who took over from the Radio Authority a couple of years ago). They should be able to advise you on the legality. If they're illegal, then it's at your own risk you use them. There shouldn't be a problem unless it interfers with another service, in which case you could find yourself with a visit from the police and a day in court

Bit melodramatic! Illegal to use but my kids have them.

Altarf

Although illegal in the UK, your chance of being prosecuted is slim.

However they will also be illegal across the rest of Europe as well (the UK ones are legal across Europe), so if you are planning on using them outside the UK, you may come across some law enforcement officials who are not as relaxed as those in the UK.

Darksun

Yeah, you're not likely to be prosecuted or even found out unless it interfers with something significant, like military or emergency radio frequencies. I don't think this is likely though