One of the best communications mediums on a cruise ship is via a walkie talkie also known as a two-way radio.
Walkie talkies however have limitations when being used in cruise ships, in this article we will be discussing the struggles of a walkie talkie when transmitting and receiving on a cruise ship.
Cruisers who have used two-way radios inside cruise ships will know the struggles of having staticky conversations with someone two to three levels above or below you. The reason for this “struggle” comes from the physics of radio communication and cruise ships
An average thickness of cruise ship wall is more than 40 millimeters now that’s thick. Imagine a cube of 40 mm thick steel with only a wooden door (that’s thicker) and a glass as openings. With cruise ship cabins walls being that thick, it is harder for radio signals from walkie talkies to escape the cabin because it finds it hard to penetrate or escape the 40mm thick walls.
Unlicensed walkie talkie users are limited to the 5 watts walkie talkie, this is a more weaker walkie talkie version. If more than 5 watts of transmission is used on cruise ships, the communication distance will be a bit farther.
When using a walkie talkie on a cruise ship, you will struggle to go 2-3 floors from each other as the two-way radio won’t be able to transmit farther than a few rooms away, this results from the signal losing energy as it tries to penetrate thick steel. You will steel be able to hear each other; however, the signal will be weak and staticky.
Different two-way radios give different results.
Supplementing your communications with Zello
As two-radios might not work throughout the cruise ship, another means of communications that you might want to have with you is Zello.
Zello is a free app that works with an internet connection, Zello is a push to talk app, just like a walkie talkie, the downside to Zello is that it needs an internet as said above. Never the less, its nice to have Zello as your secondary communications means, Zello could be useful when you are at places when you’d not want noise, such as at the restaurant.
Consider other means of communications in a cruise ship since there are limitations to communications in a cruise ship using walkie talkies.