Icom 2-Way Radios + Iridium = Globally Connected Walkie Talkies!

Mar 20, 2019

Everyone loves the benefits of traditional walkie-talkies, even kids. The ability to transmit & receive voice over a single radio line has proven beyond convenient from WWI to modern-day forestry.

Walkie-talkies are so valuable to some industries, you can find them in museums as historical artifacts.

Check out this RCA TACTEC Personal Portable Radio ca 1977 on display at the Nat'l Museum of Forest Service History. It's a six channel radio with an 6.5" rubberized antenna, which was advanced for its time. [Type: PSNTFLFHH. Serial No. C 17219.]

Traditionally a walkie-talkie is a half-duplex communication device and multiple walkie-talkies use a single radio channel to communicate. Only one radio on the channel can transmit at a time, although any number can listen. The transceiver is normally in receive mode; when the user wants to talk they must press a "push-to-talk" (PTT) button that turns off the receiver and turns on the transmitter.

The personal walkie-talkie has become popular also because of the U.S. Family Radio Service (FRS) and similar licence-free services (such as Europe's PMR446 and Australia's UHF CB) in other countries.

But in comes Iridium Communications and Icom with the IC-SAT100 PTT, dramatically raising the bar for future walkie-talkies.The Icom IC-SAT100 is essentially a walkie-talkie that can communicate with other walkie-talkies, over Iridium's global satellite network.

There are many reasons why the ICOM IC-SAT100 is one of the most competitive push-to-talk devices on the market. But here are a few product details:

IP67 Waterproof, MIL-STD 810G
Bluetooth PTT | GPS
External Antenna compatible (SMA connector to any Iridium antenna)
10.8 Ounces / 300 grams weight
One-to-Many Communication (Up to 15 Groups)
1500 mW of Powerful Audio for Noisy Environments
Long Battery Life: 24h Standby / 7 Hours Talk
Interoperability 2 with IDAS™ and Analog Radios through the Optional ICOM VE-PG4, RoIP Gateway