Back in December 1951, when we first covered walkie-talkies, they were “futuramic playthings” that kids couldn’t get enough of. The other hot toy trend that year was Western gear — toy guns, holsters, lassos, and anything else that helped kids play Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy.
A walkie-talkie, or handie talkie, (more formally known as a handheld transceiver) is a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. Its development during the Second World War has been variously credited to Donald L. Hings, radio engineer Alfred J. Gross, and engineering teams at Motorola. Similar designs were created for other armed forces, and after the war, walkie-talkies spread to public safety and eventually commercial and jobsite work. Major characteristics include a half-duplex channel (only one radio transmits at a time, though any number can listen) and a “push-to-talk” (P.T.T) switch that starts transmission. Typical walkie-talkies resemble a telephone handset, possibly slightly larger but still a single unit, with an antenna sticking out of the top. Where a phone’s earpiece is only loud enough to be heard by the user, a walkie-talkie’s built-in speaker can be heard by the user and those in the user’s immediate vicinity. Hand-held transceivers may be used to communicate between each other, or to vehicle-mounted or base stations.