<P> Military organizations use handheld radios for a variety of purposes . Modern units such as the AN / PRC - 148 Multiband Inter / Intra Team Radio (MBITR) can communicate on a variety of bands and modulation schemes and include encryption capabilities . </P> <P> Walkie - talkies (also known as HTs or "handheld transceivers") are widely used among amateur radio operators . While converted commercial gear by companies such as Motorola are not uncommon, many companies such as Yaesu, Icom, and Kenwood design models specifically for amateur use . While superficially similar to commercial and personal units (including such things as CTCSS and DCS squelch functions, used primarily to activate amateur radio repeaters), amateur gear usually has a number of features that are not common to other gear, including: </P> <Ul> <Li> Wide - band receivers, often including radio scanner functionality, for listening to non-amateur radio bands . </Li> <Li> Multiple bands; while some operate only on specific bands such as 2 meters or 70 cm, others support several UHF and VHF amateur allocations available to the user . </Li> <Li> Since amateur allocations usually are not channelized, the user can dial in any frequency desired in the authorized band . </Li> <Li> Multiple modulation schemes: a few amateur HTs may allow modulation modes other than FM, including AM, SSB, and CW, and digital modes such as radioteletype or PSK31 . Some may have TNCs built in to support packet radio data transmission without additional hardware . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Wide - band receivers, often including radio scanner functionality, for listening to non-amateur radio bands . </Li>

Where did the term walkie talkie come from