this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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Buy it for Life

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Good budget walkie talkie? (slrpnk.net)
submitted 2 days ago by AmanitaCaesarea@slrpnk.net to c/buyitforlife@slrpnk.net
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Hey Lemmings. I'm looking for a decent budget walkie talkie.

My use case is pretty casual. Nothing crazy like survival situations or long-distance missions. Mainly for small hikes and some work communication where my phone isn’t ideal.

Criteria: • Budget: up to ~50€ (ideally a set of 2 or more) • Region: Europe (putting this here for shopping options.) • License-free frequency

I’ve been eyeing a few options: • Motorola 42. The blue kiddie vibe kinda puts me off lol • Retevis models seem to have decent reviews for the price • Jucjet 4-set for around 44€ looks tempting for the pack deal

Has anyone used these or got other recommendations? Rockie Talkie keeps popping up but it's expensive and way above my use case. Cheers

Throwaway thoughts: I'm trying to decentralize my tech life away from my phone. Radio comms feel like a step in the right direction. Meshtastic is also on the todo list. Might even look into pagers soon.

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[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 7 points 2 days ago

Honestly I don't know much about the UV-K5, I use a pair of baofeng uv-5r radios, because the k5 didn't exist when I bought them. The k5 is apparently better with the option for full custom firmware and there isn't much price difference.

For my uv5r programming was basically just a case of using a programming cable and a program called CHIRP, that looks a lot like a spreadsheet, to set the right frequencies.