For Christmas, we have bought the kids some Binatone walkie talkies. They have nine channels and are basically pretty good little units.

Anyway, we were using them in a local nature reserve at the top of a hill for a bit of fun and someone came on complaining about our use. My wife actually had the unit at the time and whoever it was blurted something about ‘reserve frequencies’ or some such.

Anyway, surely CB radios that are in sale to the general public must only be able to use ‘free for all’ frequencies surely?

When I was a kid I had walkie talkies, but became petrified of using them because every time I did I would get some irate trucker or cabby claiming the frequency was ‘his’. Now in adulthood I’m pretty sure these are just the usual tossers being tossers, but I’m not 100%.

So, if we use these walkie talkies and someone comes on shouting the odds, do I just tell them to get bent or is there something ‘official’ I need to worry about.

Any CB experts out there able to comment?

BTW, the units we have are Binatone Latitude 100.

EDIT- I’ve read your post properly now but will leave the below for info on the vague off chance it’s of any interest.

You’ll be fine using the Binatones to tool around with. They transmit in the licence free part of the spectrum and come under the licence free pmr radios I mention below.

The true kids walkie talkies are all pretty crap to honest ( the ones shaped like Darth Vader etc). Poor range, lousy reception but usually a good laugh for kids.

Licence free pmr stuff is pretty good but the 3km range will be line of sight under perfect conditions. Much better range and you can actually hear what the other person is saying.

CB is another ball game altogether and there’s very few hand-held CB radios these days.

The final option is to get them to sit their M6 amateur radio exam if they’re at all into electronics etc. Then they could get a couple of Baofeng 2m/70cm handhelds and be able to communicate over a sensible distance. It’s really not hard depending on age. A number of 10-12 to pass each year.

With access to a local repeater they can also talk worldwide or go full shortwave.

(Note I hold my full amateur radio license – de Danny M0SDB. If they are at all interested in go the licenced route feel free to ping me an email – see profile)

Those Binatones are PMR446, not CB. PMR446 is free for anyone to use, without any licence.

Maybe the reserve are using them for something. The sensible thing would be to politely ask you to change to a different channel.

A mate was using radios when skiing in France , their way of keeping the frequency to themselves was to use the filthiest language they could come up with.
Not that cool.

Beware that the free part of the spectrum is different in different countries though so make sure you have UK ones.

We got a set for my daughters sixth birthday last year.

The walkie talkies are fine for the kids to play with, but we have discovered that in addition to our local skip hire company, she occasionally hears the comms from a motorbike training school who obviously have radios between the instructor and the learners. As she can talk back to them, the potential for lolz are immense

We use the same type of things to give the kids a bit more freedom on continental campsites. Its no big deal to switch channels when irate Germans / Dutch chip in….