10-4, Good Buddy

Whe

n you reach the observation deck on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, the first thing you notice is how quiet it is up there. Without the din of blaring taxi horns and swearing bike messengers, New York City can seem almost tranquil. At least it did to me--and a few dozen tourists--one afternoon last week before I whipped out six walkie-talkies and broke the spell with crackling static and a round of shrill beeps. I felt a little guilty, but, hey, I had a job to do.

The low-cost walkie-talkies of old, which transmitted only 100 yds. or so, were basically noisy toys. The latest two-way radios, by contrast, are feature-packed workhorses with a range of two miles or more. With no usage fees, they have become viable alternatives to cell phones.

When I tested the latest models--and there are a lot of them--I learned that the two-mile range can shrink to a few blocks when you're trapped in a concrete jungle. Trees, power wires and other obstructions are bad news for a walkie-talkie's fragile FM radio waves--as my editor reported after conducting tests in Massachusetts suburbs and on the beaches of Long Island.

That's how I ended up at the top of the Empire State Building. I hoped that by getting above it all, I might be able to hear my friend Dmitri, transmitting from less than a mile away, on the 23rd floor of the Time & Life Building. Unfortunately, only one of the six radios I tested from on high worked clearly: Audiovox's GMRS-1525 ($240 a pair). Its superior reception, easy controls and rechargeable batteries made it my favorite two-way.

The new Motorola Talkabout T6310 and Kenwood's FreeTalk UBZ-JH14 were close seconds. If you can stomach the $300-a-pair list price on the rugged-looking Talkabouts, you'll be treated to a built-in weather channel, FM radio, alarm clock, stopwatch and multiple privacy modes to keep your calls from being interrupted or overheard. The menus, however, are so loaded down with extras (including 10 different beeps) that it's hard to find the basics. The best feature on Kenwood's Freetalk ($230 a pair) is the ability to scan for a free channel--a big timesaver--but it too suffers from overelaborate options and settings that left Dmitri and me bewildered.

For simplicity at a bargain price, there are plenty of choices. The water-resistant Unwired FRS-14 ($99 a pair) has high-end features like voice activation and a full range of channels and subchannels, but it looks and feels cheap. The tiny Audiovox FR-560FM ($120 a pair) comes with an FM radio, earphones and fold-down antenna, but we found its reception to be among the worst of the bunch. The colorful Radio Shack Two-Way Personal Radios are currently on sale at $50 a pair but have only two channels and are best for backyard fun or neighborhood parks.

If you can't find one of these six models in stores near you, look for any brand that offers FRS (family radio service) with 14 main channels and 38 subcodes (or subchannels). Voice activation, channel scanning and scrambling to keep eavesdroppers at bay are also handy. If you plan to use the radios often, it's worth investing at least $100 a pair. Nothing's worse than an earful of static.

Learn more about these walkie-talkies at audiovox.com, kenwood.net, motorola.com, radioshack.com and unwiredtechnology.com. E-mail Anita at hamilton@time.com