Rocky Talkie 5 Watt GMRS Radio First Look

Rocky Talkie has a new GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) radio that has IP67 waterproofing, which means it’s waterproof to 3 feet (1 meter) for one hour. It also claims a long battery life of five days and offers 5-watts of power, which in theory will give a range of over 35 miles in optimal conditions, but more likely two to eight in the real world. For paddlers, the claimed range on a river is a half to three miles. Rocky Talkie sent over a pair for testing and I’ll be testing these over the paddling season.

Here are my initial impressions.

Unboxing the Rocky Talkie 5 Watt Radio

The radios come in a cardboard box with minimal packaging and no plastic other than the coating on twist ties around the provided USB-C recharging cords. It’s great to see that they aren’t using plastic in their packaging materials. It’s also great to see them using USB-C. Almost all my electronics are now USB-C rechargeable.

Also included are a Quick Start Guide, a USB-C charging cable and a back-up leash. A mic, a carbineer replacement for the gator clip, a longer antenna and an extra battery are available accessories.

Personally, I want the carbineer loop attachment versus the alligator clip. This is a $15 accessory and would work much better for clipping to a life vest than the alligator clip.

Initial Impressions

The radios themselves are substantial (9.1 ounces). I have a set of Midland FRS walkie talkies that I have used for participants while guiding, and when compared to the Rocky Talkies they feel cheap. The Rocky Talkie 5 Watt radios feel more akin to the professional radios that I used when I used to work for a parks and rec department doing park security. While I haven’t tested them for durability yet, right out of the box they feel like they are going to be able to take a beating and still work. They feel a lot like a quality VHF radio if you’ve used a VHF before.

Powering them on was easy. A long press on the power button brings turns them on. Once powered on you see the battery bar and percentage indicator, which disappears and shows you the current channel. Without looking at the manual, I instantly knew what channel I was on and what privacy channel I was on. There’s a flipper switch to go through the 22 channels. Some of the channels are 5-watt and some are lower-powered 0.5 Watt.

The volume buttons are on the side under the transmit button. There’s also an A/B button which allows you to monitor two channels. Each button has a secondary function with abbreviations or symbols engraved next to the button to act as a reminder. For example, there’s a built-in NOAA weather radio which is accessed by holding down the volume-up button. It’s turned off with a quick click of the transmit button. I was able to intuit most of the function without reading anything or watching the how-to videos.

According to the included Quick Start Guide there are other features such as the ability to use a repeater. I checked to see if there were repeaters in my area and there are none, so that’s not relevant to me but it’s nice to have the feature if I travel somewhere within range of a repeater.

Initial Use

So far we haven’t used them for paddling because the lakes just went ice out, but we’ve used them on our five-acre property and the transmission is clear as day even if we were deep in the woods. We did notice that we have to wait just a touch longer before talking than with typical radios. It seems to be related to the beep feature. My 9yo kid adjusted quickly to this.

It seems to me that these are some of the best sounding radios that I’ve used.

GMRS Licensing

In the US you’ll need to be licensed from the FCC to use these, and the FCC’s website is not easy to navigate. Luckily, Rocky Talkie has a detailed Step-by-Step Instruction GMRS License Guide. I followed their guide and got my license in about 20 minutes or so.

The license covers your immediate family members (spouse, children, grandchildren, stepchildren, parents, grandparents, stepparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and in-laws) and lasts 10 years. It was $35 when I got mine.

The rule that might trip you up is that you are required to end a single or series of transmissions with your FCC-assigned call sign and say it every 15 minutes when in a long conversation, and the assigned call signs aren’t all that memorable. When using two or more radios with your family, you can designate them unit 1, 2, etc. All the FCC rules are here. If you get a license, you’ll need to follow them.

Most of the online radio etiquette guides also suggest starting with your assigned call sign even though it is not required. It might sound like this to start a conversation. My call sign is WSMY938 if you want to contact me.

• WSBY938 Unit 1 this is WSMY938 Unit 2.

As this is my first GMRS radio, I’ll need to listen to see how formal people are. I would guess that if someone is using a repeater, it would be better to be more formal. The FCC rules don’t require saying the call sign until the end, so you technically don’t need to initiate a conversation with them. It could be like this:

• Ilena this is Bryan.
• Go ahead Bryan.
• Meet me at the portage.
• Sounds good. Over and out.
• WSMY938.

VHF Versus GMRS

My brief thoughts on whether or not you should get a VHF or a GMRS are this: If you are sea kayaking and often sea kayak were there will be other ships, then a VHF is the way to go. Where it gets a little more murky is in areas where there aren’t other VHF users or when you’ll be doing multiple activities, such as going on a hike.

In the US, the FCC has expanded the rules to allow VHF usage on shore as long as it is related to the function of the boat. Seems to me that going on a hike isn’t related to the boat, so you’d need something else.

When I go to the Boundary Waters on a canoe trip, it’s much less likely that we’re going to run into other VHF users, and we may be doing other things not related to paddling so that’s when I feel that a GMRS is better. It’s also something that as a family we can bring with fishing, biking, hiking, or doing other activities that aren’t paddling.

What I’m Hoping to Test on the Rocky Talkie 5 Watt Radios

Over the season, I’m hoping to test the durability in normal use (in my life vest, on my pack, and on my bike), the range while paddling in the Boundary Waters and while hiking. I want to do a long-range test as well to see if 30 miles is possible with a good line-of-sight. I also want to test the battery life on a trip to the Boundary Waters.

I want to test these radios to see if they will be a good addition to our family adventures in the outdoors and function like claimed, especially for canoe trips with multiple canoes and bike trips.

Pricing and Purchasing Details

The pricing is $165 per radio, and based on the information on the website as I write this they are popular. They have sold out of the first five batches of the radio and are in pre-order for a May 3rd shipment.

If you want to buy them now, you can at Rocky Talkie’s website here: Rocky Talkies website.