Batboard

After hearing more than a handful of nicks given to portable radios, I have to wonder which ones you've heard. At the railroad, we call them paksets. I hear Douglas County Emergency Communications (Oregon) police officers advise of a "dead sidepack battery" all the time, so I'd assume this is the portable they're referring to. Amtrak conductors will announce from a portable, for instance, "P051 Amtrak West...portable to headend, over." One that cracks me up is Wal*Mart calling them walkie talkies. (I think of a walkie talkie as a consumer-grade toy that you can buy from Radio Shack, not a high-end portable. Just me though.)

Which leads to two questions...what have you heard them called, and what do you commonly call them?
~Billy Myers,
GP-38

GP-38 wrote:One that cracks me up is Wal*Mart calling them walkie talkies. (I think of a walkie talkie as a consumer-grade toy that you can buy from Radio Shack, not a high-end portable. Just me though.)

Have you ever seen Wally world using anything other than consumer grade toys? I can't recall ever coming across an Astro Saber III on the managers belts, just cheapo JOB-COM's and other random cheap business band radios.

Well, We carry Standard HX582's at work of our onsite system, and we call em D*($*# pieces of $(*($@!!!! and $#*$*&$$*$(*$(!!!!! and #*$*$IJFNJ(*@!!!!!!!!!!!







-RC-

I have even heard them referred to as phones. That one really ticks me off.

Drunk Person Tamer (refering to a good old MT-500)

It would seem to me that most police agencies (at least around here) calls their portable radios "Preps" for some reason....I don't know why- it doesn't make any sense. I call it a radio, portable, brick (if it indeed be), and also by name (ie XTS3K, GP300, etc).

-Josh

I've always called them either "hand-held", or the model of the radio in question at the time.

or what about Damn.

as in give me the Damn Radio.
were is that damn radio

thgiz wrote:Drunk Person Tamer (refering to a good old MT-500)

How about the old MX series?!?!?! I knew a guy that worked for /\/\ back in the day and he was responsible for servicing the Newark P.D.'s MX series ports. at the time. He could'nt even remember how many came in with blood and/or hair in and on them.

Station House Products wrote:

thgiz wrote:Drunk Person Tamer (refering to a good old MT-500)

How about the old MX series?!?!?! I knew a guy that worked for /\/\ back in the day and he was responsible for servicing the Newark P.D.'s MX series ports. at the time. He could'nt even remember how many came in with blood and/or hair in and on them.

Talk about police brutality, eh?

I recall that I also call radios HT's or "Handie Talkies" too.

-Josh

Toronto Police call their portable "Mitres"

My AS3..? Wallet Shrinker
Cash Vacuum
"Benny" Buster
Portable Mortgage Payment
Wireless ATM <--hey 4 watts!!

Other than that..I like it..hehe

Handheld, Portable, or it never had a problem with me calling it 'radio'...

Nick

My ex's attorney called them "community property"
requiring equitable division of assets.

we have a dispatcher who's incapable of starting a sentence without using the word "portable".

you can be IN YOUR DAMN RIG, and she calls "PORTABLE 226, PORTABLE 226 ON THE AIR, PRIORITY 2"...combine that with the heaviest boston accent in the world, the fact she sits 4 feet from the deskslapper, and misses and crosses up trucks like it's good for her...makes for 12 hours of pain and suffering.

LAPD calls them "Rovers"
Remote
Outside
Vehicle
Emergency
Radio

We call them portables,walkies, or radios
Or a big chunk out of your wallet if you lose it

Fowler

The HT220's Omni's as I recall know as 'The Brick'. And yes you can use most of the older HT's to bust someone up.

While on a visit to the big 'M' in another life, one of the iden guys mentioned that their exists a wall of Motorola Radios that have a crazy story behind them, radios with bullet holes, etc. Would be a good web page....

Sandy

Talk about police brutality, eh?




It all depends on what they guy ( or Girl) was doing. I used a PCS one day....6 stiches on the dirtbags head....of course, I got my left lung colapsed.... It did work by the way.....he went to the hospital, and then Jail....I just went to the hospital..... Next time...Just say NO!


DFC2

As Hetero said, they call them MITRE's here in Toronto... TTC (transit) also calls them a MITRE... MITRE actually stands for "Minitaure Integrated Transmit-Receive Equipment". I've heard them called by Ambulance types as their "Mike unit"... in Canada, the equivalent of the NEXtel system is the Telus "MIKE" system... heh...I guess cause it makes 3 beeps it must be iDEN


-Mike

most of what i call them...

would get me kicked off of here in a hurry...

When i was stationed on my first Submarine, we used Saber's to communicate with the Base Police while in port, so everyone called them Sabers. About a year before i left, They bought 10 MTS2000 UHF's, Those idiots still called them Sabers. That ticked me off.


Any other Navy people in here? Especially SubSaiols?

Spartanburg County calls them "WT".

It will be their unit number followed by a "WT" if that's what they're using. If not, then they'll just say the unit number. It just gives the dispatcher an idea of 'what happened' if they happen to fade out or not answer right away.

How about the old gay name that Motorola used: Radiophone?

How about handie-talkie??

Or when we had the ht750's on the trucks: gosh darn @#%#@%% piece of #%^@#% radios, give me your mt1000 or I'll stomp you...

GP-38 wrote: . . . One that cracks me up is Wal*Mart calling them walkie talkies. (I think of a walkie talkie as a consumer-grade toy that you can buy from Radio Shack, not a high-end portable. Just me though.)

. . .

Well, there's a matter of trademarks here. "Handie Talkie" we all know is a Motorola trademark. Therefore, calling a Big M hand held a "handie talkie" or "HT" is cool. Anything else is NOT an HT.

Yes, the "Handie Talkie FM Radiophone" . . . a funny name but my "HT200 Handie Talkie FM Radiophone" still works quite well on 29.600.

Oh and about the quoted comment above. Before there were Handie Talkies, Motorola had another trademarked name: Walkie Talkie. The big backpack "portables" and the World War Two vintage hand helds were called "walkie talkies" by Big M.

History often answers our questions. I just happen to know these.

wb4bsd wrote:

Any other Navy people in here? Especially SubSaiols?

EX Navy, here. Did my seven years in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club. But I was an airedale. AT2, when I got out (1996).

Navy here, HM2(FMF).

12 years active duty, 7 years with the Marines and have only been on a ship for 7 days... Lucky me, huh.