Two-way radios for skiing, and the range number to ignore

The 35-mile number, and what it actually means

Every radio in this category is sold on a range figure, and every range figure is measured mountain top to mountain top with nothing in between. Midland prints 36 miles on the box and then publishes, on its own product page, that the GXT series averages half a mile to 2 miles in normal conditions. Rocky Talkie publishes the same honesty differently: over 35 miles maximum, 2 to 8 miles typical in backcountry terrain, and 1 to 5 miles in mountains for its FRS model.

At a ski resort you are asking a radio to reach across two ridges and a lift line, which is a mile or two of broken terrain with a mountain in the middle. Every radio here does that. None of them does 35 miles, and no amount of extra wattage changes the fact that radio waves do not bend around a ridge.

So rank them on what does vary: battery life, whether snow kills them, and whether you need a license to transmit.

FRS or GMRS: the question that decides two of these

This is the detail that catches families out, and the makers publish it plainly.

• FRS is the low-power service. Rocky Talkie publishes its Mountain Radio as 2-watt FRS across 128 channels and states that it needs no license in the US. Open the box, turn it on, done.
• GMRS allows more power - Rocky Talkie publishes 5 watts as the highest allowed for a handheld GMRS radio - and Rocky Talkie’s own Expedition page points buyers at getting a GMRS license. The Midland GXT1000VP4 is a GMRS radio too.
• The practical consequence: if nobody in the family wants to deal with an FCC license, the Mountain Radio is the only radio on this page you can buy and use the same afternoon.

Who each of these is for, and who should skip them all

• Most families: the Rocky Talkie Mountain Radio. No license, a published 3 to 5 day battery you can swap, IP56 and a 3-year warranty.
• A family that needs two radios tonight: the Midland pair. Two radios, two chargers, two headsets and a 3-year warranty for a published $99.99 - less than one Mountain Radio - with a GMRS license to sort out.
• Trees, touring or repeat drownings: the Expedition. IP67 to one meter and 5 watts, with the skip note attached for resort use.
• Skip all three if you ski one groomed mountain with phone signal. A text message does the job, and the lift map has meeting points on it. Radios earn their place when the mountain is big, the signal is patchy or the group splits by ability.
• Skip them for young children. A radio is only useful if the person carrying it answers it. Under about eight, a meeting plan beats a device.

What this page ranks on

• 1. Published battery life. A radio that is flat at 2pm is a brick. Rocky Talkie publishes days; Midland publishes no hours figure at all.
• 2. Published water rating. IP56, IP67 and JIS4 are not the same thing, and only one of them survives being dropped in deep snow and dug out later.
• 3. Licensing. FRS or GMRS, as published by the maker.
• 4. How it attaches. A radio in a pocket is a radio you cannot hear. Clips, leashes and carabiners are published features and they matter.
• 5. Published warranty. Two of the three publish a term, which in this ledger counts as a good category.
• Not the headline range. See above. Where a maker publishes a realistic figure as well, that is the one quoted here.

The three, compared

The picks

Rocky Talkie Mountain Radio

The pick, and the best-documented product in this whole category. Rocky Talkie publishes a 3 to 5 day battery from a replaceable 1,550 mAh cell, 2-watt FRS across 128 channels that needs no license in the US, an IP56 splashproof and snowproof rating, 6.1 oz, and a 3-year personal-use warranty - every figure on its own page.

Days of battery is the specification that changes how a radio gets used. A radio you charge weekly lives in the ski jacket all season and is charged when you need it; a radio you must charge nightly is a radio that is flat on the one morning it matters.

It ships with a Trango carabiner and a metal-reinforced backup leash, which is the other thing this category gets wrong: a radio in a zipped pocket cannot be heard, and a radio clipped to the outside of a jacket with nothing backing it up ends up in the snow under a chairlift.

Honest cons. $120 per radio published, and a family needs two, so this is the dearest route to a working pair except the Expedition. IP56 is splash and snow, not submersion - Rocky Talkie says so plainly. It does nothing for music, and 6.1 oz on a jacket zipper is noticeable, which is the price of a battery that lasts days.

Midland GXT1000VP4, 2-pack

The value answer, and the honest one. For a published $99.99 you get two radios, two belt clips, a desktop charger, rechargeable battery packs, AC and DC adapters and two boom-mic headsets - less than the price of one Mountain Radio.

Midland also publishes the figure the rest of the category hides. The box says 36 miles; the product page says the GXT averages half a mile to 2 miles in normal conditions. A maker that publishes its own worst number is a maker worth reading.

The specification is otherwise solid for a resort: 50 channels, 142 privacy codes, NOAA weather alert with weather scan, an SOS siren, JIS4 water resistance and a published 3-year warranty.

Honest cons. It is GMRS, so US users need a license before transmitting - the single reason it is not the pick for a family that wants to buy and go. JIS4 is splash resistance, not submersion, so a radio dropped off a chairlift into deep snow is a gamble. No battery life in hours is published anywhere on the page, which on this page’s first criterion is a real gap. And the rechargeable packs are not swappable AAs, so a flat radio stays flat until it reaches the charger.

Rocky Talkie Expedition 5 Watt, and why it carries the skip

The best radio here and the wrong one for most readers of this page. Rocky Talkie publishes IP67, hand-tested to one meter of submersion, with a water-shedding design; 5 watts, the highest allowed for a handheld GMRS radio; 4 to 6 days from an 1,800 mAh battery in frigid conditions; 2 to 8 miles of typical backcountry range; 8 GMRS repeater channels; and both a 7.5 cm and a 17 cm antenna in the box.

If you ski trees, tour beyond the boundary, or have already killed a radio in wet snow, that IP67 rating is worth the money on its own.

It carries the skip because a groomed resort day uses almost none of it. Five watts does not see through a ridge any better than two for the distances a family actually needs, the GMRS license applies, and at $195 per radio two of them cost 390 dollars - against 99.99 for the Midland pair that does the same job at the same resort.

Using radios with a family, which is mostly a habit

• Agree the channel in the parking lot, not on the hill. Write it on a piece of tape inside the radio. Half the failed radio days are two people on different channels.
• Clip it outside, high. Shoulder strap or chest pocket, not the bottom of a backpack. You cannot hear a radio through a jacket and a pack.
• Use a headset or a shoulder mic for the adult who ranges furthest. Midland includes two boom-mic headsets in the box.
• Keep the batteries warm overnight. A radio left in the car develops a shorter day. Bring it inside with the boots - the same trip as the drying routine.
• Radios are not a tracking device. They do not tell you where a child is; they let a child tell you. A meeting plan at a named lift is still the backbone.