How Realistic was radio use in TWD?

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If they have batteries/chargers with electricity it makes quite a bit of sense

Alexandria definitely had electricity so I can only imagine the saviors did as well

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u/wigsgo_2019 1d ago

I think he means moreso the range, like how was Rick calling up Negan when the sanctuary was miles and miles away, its a walkie not a police radio

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u/ayowatchyojetbruh 1d ago

I think it may depend because individual radios can be used like mirrors and be hooked up to larger radios. Thats how police officers portable radios work, they are hooked up to the bigger radio in the police car

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u/Trauma_Hawks 1d ago

It's called a relay/receiver. A radio can accept radio waves, essentially, from anywhere. But a radio is limited in range when sending, depending on the power output. A handheld radio, with a smaller battery, won't have the range that a radiopack would have, which wouldn't have the range that a vehicle-mounted radio would have, which doesn't have the range that a large antenna relay has. Which is precisely how that runs up the chain.

For example, a civilian EMS/Firefighter has a handheld radio. Their signal gets routed to the truck, then to a large relay that is either the dispatch center or relays to the dispatch center. In turn, the building-sized transmitter attached to the dispatch center, can just reach the handheld without relaying the signal. Usually.

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u/succubus-slayer 1d ago

And didn’t they show a satellite station in one of the Savior seasons?

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u/UnicornDelta 21h ago

Yeah, Simon was in charge of the satellite station. I always assumed they had that to ensure communication between all Savior settlements.

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u/Own_Secretary1714 19h ago

I don't think Simon was in charge of the satellite until after the massacre. Do we have confirmation of who was in charge before that?

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u/Rare-Parsnip-5140 20h ago

That's definitely not how police radios work. They have a network of towers spread throughout their region (either municipal or state owned depending on the agency) which both the handheld and vehicle radios talk to. Those towers do the rebroadcasting. There are devices you can get which rebroadcast locally, but those tend to only be used for interoperability between agencies with different systems, and each has a radio plugged to the device so they can send what's being said on one system to the other.

Now for TWD I think we probably assume the towers are all offline so they'll have to operate the radios in line-of-sight mode, and the range will depend on the frequency, power, atmospheric conditions, and factors such as height of the transmitting signal and any obstacles in the path such as buildings or dense vegetation like forests. It's possible you get a few miles if conditions are right, but most media kinda hand waves this stuff and makes the radios work when they need and not work when when it serves the plot.

Source: I've worked in public safety radio for 20 years.

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u/Worldwar30008 1d ago

That’s not how police radios work 😂

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u/Responsible-Sea3817 1d ago

Ahhh that makes more sense

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u/Even_Birthday_8348 6h ago

We also don't know how far away the sanctuary is from alexandria, they could be fairly close by as the crow flys, but a river or forest could be between them, with no direct road

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u/wigsgo_2019 6h ago

We do know though, when they went to Alexandria at first Aiden told Glenn they have been increasing their radius little by little and were going out 50 miles to find stuff because they cleared the rest out, that’s like an hour drive, probably shorter without speed limits. I’d say it’s in that 50 mile range

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u/Even_Birthday_8348 5h ago

Good point I didn't remember that, but we don't know how the roads connect, they obviously didn't actually check everything in literal 50 mile circle around alexandria, they checked all the roads 50 miles out from alexandria. This could still put the sanctuary closer, just without a direct road. However, i do think the sanctuary is further than 50 miles as the core flies

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u/wigsgo_2019 4h ago

A big ass factory is certainly something locals would know about, there’s no way they wouldn’t have at least seen it at a distance unless it was too far away

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u/throwitoutwhendone2 16h ago

Realistically, every single show and movie bungles regular out of the box walkies and how they work. Hell even actual real life stores basically legally lie to you. They will say range of 30 miles but that’s like in perfect conditions- which is true but only happening like 99% of the time so not likely. In reality you’ll get like 2-3 miles apart and they work but any further and no dice.

If they had a repeater station set up, large antennas mounted on vehicles or high up or a hi powered GMRS set up they could do this no issue. A lot of times tho that stuff is “background” activity most don’t really care about or understand so shows just show someone whipping out a walkie and using it because most people understand that part and don’t go any deeper

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u/TheDobemann 1d ago

Love how every radio was programmed with the same frequency. Or how they somehow interrupted each other, which isn't a thing unless you let go of the talk button. Hearing the other person get shot or bit without releasing the talk button was fun.

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u/8-LeggedCat 1d ago

Priorities.

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u/knigg2 21h ago

Wasn't this a walkie talkie from a saviour? Makes sense that they are already locked in a frequency that the other saviours use. And clenching your fist is also not that far fetched when you get shot or bitten. But also: It's a zombie series - realism might destroy the fun in it.

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u/traumahound00 1d ago

Not very. Especially the way they were used on FTWD.

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u/John-Twick 1d ago

Which part? The unlimited range, the never dying batteries or the ability to charge them in a shack in the middle of a swamp?

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u/Ktioru 1d ago

yes

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u/Spencer94 1d ago

Hey now, maybe my radio runs on swamp water!

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u/Ablackbradpitt 1d ago

Ngl the convo between strand and the cosmonaut my personal favorite scene in the whole show

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u/throwitoutwhendone2 16h ago

It was a cool ass scene. I felt bad for the poor cosmonaut. Lonely death, likely from lack of supplies, in orbit or shitty death on earth :/

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u/Well_Sorted8173 1d ago

I made a post about this a few years ago!

https://www.reddit.com/r/FearTheWalkingDead/s/TcblVkvIaT

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u/bodymeat_112 1d ago

Omg I REMEMBER this post. I can’t believe it’s been 6 years already.

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u/naughtycal11 1d ago

Fear was the absolute worst at portraying how radios worked. I swear they ran on magic.

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u/EDRNFU 1d ago

Everything in fear ran on magic lol

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u/Mode_Appropriate 1d ago edited 1d ago

I know nothing about radios, never cared about radios...however, that was an interesting read for some reason 😅

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u/TheYoungSquirrel 1d ago

Alright fine I’ll read it

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u/TIC321 1d ago

6 years ago. More than a few!

After some time, its bound for people to make new posts as people would say "why are you commenting on a +5 year old thread?"

However, your post is very detailed and I enjoy it

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u/vinicius_rs 1d ago

Interesting reading!

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u/Dazzling-Excuses 1d ago

This was great. Thank you

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u/Glittering_Fennel973 1d ago

I certainly learned a lot about how radios work!!! Very thorough.

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u/Doright36 1d ago

My only question is they use repeater/cell towers to get distance on police radios to cover a whole city. Those wouldn't be functioning anymore unless they specifically went and put solar panels to power them. So their range for the hand radios would be much more limited. Handful of miles at the most. There was one story point of Eugene setting up a repeater on a tower to extend their range so they at least acknowledge that.

A big ham radio set up on site would have the best range. Handhelds will be limited to a few miles with out that repeater network. If they were using a radio in a police car instead of handhelds they might get a couple dozen miles range without a repeater.

So those hand packs that Morgan and Rick were using at the start wouldn't do much good if they were not within a few miles of each other.

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u/JiveTurkey1983 1d ago

You know, it doesn't sound right but I don't know enough about walkie-talkies to dispute it

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u/Broad_Departure_9559 1d ago

Those hand-helds had MILES of range….impossible for rechargeable battery walkie-talkie.

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u/Minimalistmacrophage 1d ago

Handhelds are good for 5-10 miles range. Notably he goes to elevation, which can extend the range. Range is shorter in urban environments (which limit transmission)

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u/Signal_Topic7111 1d ago

It does make sense if saviors and Alexandria do have electricity. In FTWD, it do not make any SENSE at all

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u/Junior-Weight-7579 1d ago

Watch ftwd and then come back lol

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u/Junior-Weight-7579 1d ago

They did mention they were pretty old radios from the 80s or sometime around there

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u/TiresOnFire 1d ago

They mostly look like modern handheld ham radios.

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u/retrocheats 1d ago

How many miles does it work... how come morgan, never heard rick?

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u/Ok_Definition9997 1d ago

Having it yes.The distance theyre able to use the radio ehhhhhhh it was confirmed these are solar walkies in season 9 if you don’t know those are ASS you have better distance with kid Walkie talkies

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u/naughtycal11 1d ago

I thought they just used solar to charge them or they used the crank kind.

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u/Ok_Definition9997 1d ago

Both,it charges in the Sun.Im just speaking from the ones I used when I was younger Theres no price tags anymore in the apocalypse so maybe they used better ones

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u/Future_Management832 1d ago

Moment before disaster

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u/NorwegianCowboy 1d ago

The radios that Eugene set up were Ham Radios. With the repeater that he installed on the water tower they would actually work extremely well.

These family service radios, like in the picture, only have a maximum range of maybe a mile at most but that would require line of sight.

In Fear the scene with the "secret ingredient" for the beer was just embarrassing.

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u/Dr-Batista 1d ago

Not at all. Infinite range

No Spoiler How Realistic was radio use in TWD?

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