Legality of "Walkie-Talkie" at the Championship

[Dominick Ferone]

We used an app to communicate to our drivers and pit when we would be running around, as well as talk to our person on field for alliance selections. The app ran off of cell data and was useful for being able to keep in touch while roaming around to scout or strategist. When on field the drive team would simply unhook the headphones and put them in their pockets. During one match while we were stuck waiting for close to an hour it helped because we radioed our pit guys to bring us a new battery and the laptop charger.

[RyanCahoon]

Originally Posted by MooreteP

Are you Heisenberg?

OP is from Israel. My guess was that they were looking for a quick solution to accruing roaming cell charges. If they have GSM phones, there's probably a way to get US SIM cards, but I'm not sure how complicated a process that takes.

[Jorge Ayala]

Originally Posted by RyanCahoon

OP is from Israel. My guess was that they were looking for a quick solution to accruing roaming cell charges. If they have GSM phones, there's probably a way to get US SIM cards, but I'm not sure how complicated a process that takes.

My team is from Mexico, what we do is buy US sim cards. There is a data plan that for 3 dollars a day gives you 200 MB and unlimited calls and texts.

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

How about a string and two cans?

a reeeeeeaaaaaaly long string

[Munchskull]

Like suuuuuper long.

[JesseK]

In the past we've used two separate Chat Rooms in some app to coordinate travel, plans, match strategies, who's needed where, etc. I don't remember the app. One group was mentor-only, the other was students-only + the lead teacher. This year we did Google Hangouts with the same setup.

Make sure you bring a couple of phone charger cords to your pits.

This type of thing is imperative for away events, IMO.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by dag0620

Thats why the rule exists banning them. It has nothing to do with strategy, its simply to keep channels free for event staff to use. Like you said at a normal event there's various channels in use, and with 8 fields going on it will get even tighter. The last thing you'd want to do is stumble across a field channel, or worse the EMT channel and cause confusion.

"Walkie talkies" purchased by consumers typically operate on FRS and would not be on the same bands as the business radios used by event staff which may utilize protocols like MOTOTRBO operating on DMR bands.

[runneals]

Just find a ham op to turn into an Elmer

de
KD0SET

[techhelpbb]

Make a flexible display on the back of your team shirts and display a large monochrome QR code. Then snap pictures of the code from the stands with your smartphone. Do that both ways and you have bidirectional delivery of information using visible light.