Last year I discovered the hard way that Motorola Talkabout walkie-talkies come configured by default to turn themselves off after one hour of inactivity. While this may seem like a good idea, in my opinion this is a very dangerous feature. It is so easy to go an hour playing on the Playa without talking into the radio, and by then the person you are trying to talk to may have had their radio switch itself off without their realizing. In my experience, the batteries (NiMH or alkaline) last a whole day or night no problem, so the auto-power-off feature is totally unnecessary.

I discovered this 'feature' after spending about an hour searching Center Camp looking for my wife after her walkie-talkie turned itself off - luckily, we had agreed to meet at Center Camp by hailing one another on the walkie-talkies, so at least I knew the rough area to find her. If it had been on the open Playa I might have lost her until we returned to our camp!

The good news is that you can turn off this 'feature' really easily - simply hit the menu button until the display reads 'hr' and decrease the number '1' to '-'. You can also set the auto-off to 8 hours if you prefer.

I hope this saves you the same aggravation that I experienced last year!

cheers,