Originally developed for the Allied war effort in 1940, walkie-talkies were co-opted by birders to put out news on hot-spots like Scilly and Fair Isle, before the advent of mobiles and pagers.
55 : Motorola walkie-talkie
1936
Originally developed for the Allied war effort in 1940, walkie-talkies were co-opted by birders to put out news on hot-spots like Scilly and Fair Isle, before the advent of mobiles and pagers.
Long before mobile phone technology was invented, portable communication devices were limited initially to military use, and Motorola pioneered the ‘walkie-talkie’, a backpack-carried mobile radio transmitter and receiver, in 1940. This was developed almost simultaneously with the ‘handie-talkie’ from the same company, and both made a great contribution to the war effort, enabling rapid dissemination of information across both battlefield and training ground.
In the post-war period the devices became more sophisticated and spread into industry and outdoor recreation. Today, walkie-talkies vary considerably in design according to model, function and intended use, but are visually distinguishable from mobile telephones by their push-to-talk and radio channel-selector buttons, lack of an earpiece and fixed antenna. Before mobile phones were so widely available, they fulfilled a key role in spreading news of interesting birds in the field. This practice is well-established in Britain, and Dick Filby of Rare Bird Alert is frequently seen using one to communicate vagrant ‘gen’ on the Isles of Scilly in the Channel 4 documentary Birders (1996).
Elsewhere, though their appeal has remained somewhat limited in birding with the rise of mobile phone technology, many conservation organisations and field workers worldwide use the devices, from African big game reserves to Antarctic research stations, and including the RSPB, which uses handheld radios for both volunteers and staff on some of its larger reserves. In areas where there is little or poor mobile coverage, they can provide a critical – and cost-effective – service, working in the absence of cellular signals and without requiring paid-for connections to other users. Hence they remain popular to this day on Portugal’s answer to the Scillies – the Azorean island of Corvo where, each October, Europe’s most hardcore listers converge to search for rarities in an impressive volcanic landscape which inhibits mobile phone signals.