question: How do different radio frequencies work and is it possible to tune my normal radio to receive a frequency from my walkie talkie?
comment: Say you've got information, like someone talking and you want someone else to hear it. You can play it over a speaker, but it only goes so far. What you can also do is convert it to an electromagnetic wave using an antenna, and someone else can use another antenna to convert it back and play it over their own speaker. Sounds dope, so a lot of people do it. The problem is the information has some bandwidth, or a range of frequencies that you care about. If everyone just sent off their own radio waves without doing anything, they'd all overlap and it would be like trying to listen to a bunch of people shouting in a room. The trick behind modulation is that it shifts the baseband signal (the bandwidth you care about) up into a different part of the spectrum. You get a little slice of it called a channel, and you can broadcast over it all you want. The government controls who gets what channels. The channels are spread out so no one overlaps, within reason. As to your question about your radio, no you can't. It's illegal first off, and the radio isn't designed to work in any band, or to transmit (it just receives). Walkie talkies work on different bands and have different designs than your car radio. There's a lot more that happens, especially with digital radio, but that's the general idea.
passages: Consumer and commercial equipment differ in a number of ways; commercial gear is generally ruggedized, with metal cases, and often has only a few specific frequencies programmed into it (often, though not always, with a computer or other outside programming device; older units can simply swap crystals), since a given business or public safety agent must often abide by a specific frequency allocation. Consumer gear, on the other hand, is generally made to be small, lightweight, and capable of accessing any channel within the specified band, not just a subset of assigned channels.
  
  Section::::Contemporary use.:Military.
   Since 3 February 2004, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has allocated the 446.0–446.1 MHz frequency band for low-powered walkie-talkies on a non-interference, non-protected and shared-use basis. As these walkie-talkies are low-powered devices which do not potentially cause interference to other licensed radio services, it need not be licensed for use in Singapore. However, the device must be type approved by IDA for local sale.
  
  Section::::Using other UHF and VHF frequencies.:South Africa.
   Each radio works over a single band of frequencies. If a tow car company had a frequency on the same band as its auto club, a single radio with scanning might be employed for both systems. Since a mobile radio typically works on a single frequency band, multiple radios may be required in cases where communications take place over systems on more than one frequency band.
  
  Section::::Walkie talkie converters in place of mobile radios.
   Personal two-way radios are also sometimes combined with other electronic devices; Garmin's Rino series combine a GPS receiver in the same package as an FRS/GMRS walkie-talkie (allowing Rino users to transmit digital location data to each other) Some personal radios also include receivers for AM and FM broadcast radio and, where applicable, NOAA Weather Radio and similar systems broadcasting on the same frequencies. Some designs also allow the sending of text messages and pictures between similarly equipped units.
   While the bulk of personal walkie-talkie traffic is in the 27 MHz and 400-500 MHz area of the UHF spectrum, there are some units that use the "Part 15" 49 MHz band (shared with cordless phones, baby monitors, and similar devices) as well as the "Part 15" 900 MHz band; in the US at least, units in these bands do not require licenses as long as they adhere to FCC Part 15 power output rules. A company called TriSquare is, as of July 2007, marketing a series of walkie-talkies in the United States, based on frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology operating in this frequency range under the name eXRS (eXtreme Radio Service—despite the name, a proprietary design, not an official allocation of the US FCC). The spread-spectrum scheme used in eXRS radios allows up to 10 billion virtual "channels" and ensures private communications between two or more units.
   There are various accessories available for walkie-talkies such as rechargeable batteries, drop in rechargers, multi-unit rechargers for charging as many as six units at a time, and an audio accessory jack that can be used for headsets or speaker microphones. Newer models allow the connection to wireless headsets via Bluetooth.
  
  Section::::ITU classification.
  
  In line to the ITU Radio Regulations, article 1.73, a walkie-talkie is classified as radio station / land mobile station.
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Mobile radio telephone
  
  BULLET::::- AN/PRC-6
  
  BULLET::::- MOTO Talk
  
  BULLET::::- Push to talk
  
  BULLET::::- Serval project
  
  BULLET::::- Signal Corps Radio
  
  BULLET::::- Survival radio
   Personal walkie-talkies are generally designed to give easy access to all available channels (and, if supplied, squelch codes) within the device's specified allocation.
   While jobsite and government radios are often rated in power output, consumer radios are frequently and controversially rated in mile or kilometer ratings. Because of the line of sight propagation of UHF signals, experienced users consider such ratings to be wildly exaggerated, and some manufacturers have begun printing range ratings on the package based on terrain as opposed to simple power output.
   Applications on the market that offer this walkie-talkie style interaction for audio include Voxer, Zello, Orion Labs, Motorola Wave, and HeyTell, among others.
  
  Other smartphone-based walkie-talkie products are made by companies like goTenna, Fantom Dynamics and BearTooth, and offer a radio interface. Unlike mobile data dependent applications, these products work by pairing to an app on the user's smartphone and working over a radio interface. These products are consumer oriented implementations of technologies that have been widely available to HAM radio enthusiasts for years.
  
  Section::::Specialized uses.
   BULLET::::- 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.
  
  BULLET::::- Since amateur allocations usually are not channelized, the user can dial in any frequency desired in the authorized band.
  
  BULLET::::- 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.
   There is a broad range of hardware solutions for radio amateurs and home use. There are professional-grade transceiver solutions, e.g. the Zeus ZS-1 or the Flex Radio, home-brew solutions,e.g. PicAStar transceiver, the SoftRock SDR kit, and starter or professional receiver solutions, e.g. the FiFi SDR for shortwave, or the Quadrus coherent multi-channel SDR receiver for short wave or VHF/UHF in direct digital mode of operation.
   Many toy R/C cars and wireless keyboards and mice operate on the 27 MHz R/C channels, especially 27.145 MHz. But most of these devices run far less than 4 watts and do not operate under the RCRS service. Instead, they operate under the FCC's Part 15 rules, which allow a wide variety of low powered devices to use the frequencies from 26.96 to 27.28 MHz, which covers CB Channels 1 through 27. Newer wireless keyboards and mice tend to use Bluetooth technology or frequencies in the 2.4 or 5.8 GHz region. Some R/C devices, especially quadcopters/drones, use cellular data techniques.
   Because of interference from CB radios, legal or otherwise, the noise level, and the limited number of channels, most "serious" hobby radio-controlled models operate on other bands. Interference is especially important for model aircraft where it presents a safety issue.
   One popular way to access amateur-only frequencies is to modify an off-the-shelf access point with custom firmware. This custom firmware is freely available on the Internet from projects such as DD-WRT and OpenWrt. The AREDN Project supports off-the-shelf firmware that supports Part-97-only frequencies on Ubiquiti and TP-Link hardware. A popular piece of hardware that is modified is the Linksys WRT54GL because of the widespread availability of both the hardware and third-party firmware, however, the Linksys hardware is not frequency agile due to the closed nature of the Linksys drivers.
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Amateur radio emergency communications
   Section::::Using other UHF and VHF frequencies.:Finland.
   BULLET::::- Radio-controlled models – a popular hobby is playing with radio-controlled model boats, cars, airplanes, and helicopters (quadcopters) which are controlled by radio signals from a handheld console with a joystick. Most recent transmitters use the 2.4 GHz ISM band with multiple control channels modulated with PWM, PCM or FSK.
   Section::::Design.:Tuned circuit.:Impedance matching.
   The GNU Radio project already successfully demonstrated that purely software-based demodulators can exist and the hardware rule is not fully enforceable.
  
  Section::::Current status.
   Section::::History.:SPEAKeasy phase I.
  
  From 1990 to 1995, the goal of the SPEAKeasy program was to demonstrate a radio for the U.S. Air Force tactical ground air control party that could operate from 2 MHz to 2 GHz, and thus could interoperate with ground force radios (frequency-agile VHF, FM, and SINCGARS), Air Force radios (VHF AM), Naval Radios (VHF AM and HF SSB teleprinters) and satellites (microwave QAM). Some particular goals were to provide a new signal format in two weeks from a standing start, and demonstrate a radio into which multiple contractors could plug parts and software.
   The personal walkie-talkie has become popular also because of the U.S. Family Radio Service (FRS) and similar licence-free services (such as Europe's PMR446 and Australia's UHF CB) in other countries. While FRS walkie-talkies are also sometimes used as toys because mass-production makes them low cost, they have proper superheterodyne receivers and are a useful communication tool for both business and personal use. The boom in licence-free transceivers has, however, been a source of frustration to users of licensed services that are sometimes interfered with. For example, FRS and GMRS overlap in the United States, resulting in substantial pirate use of the GMRS frequencies. Use of the GMRS frequencies (USA) requires a license; however most users either disregard this requirement or are unaware. Canada reallocated frequencies for licence-free use due to heavy interference from US GMRS users. The European PMR446 channels fall in the middle of a United States UHF amateur allocation, and the US FRS channels interfere with public safety communications in the United Kingdom. Designs for personal walkie-talkies are in any case tightly regulated, generally requiring non-removable antennas (with a few exceptions such as CB radio and the United States MURS allocation) and forbidding modified radios.
   User equipment designs are similar to commercial land mobile two-way radio except the maximum legal output power is 5 Watts. External antennas are permitted and commercially manufactured antennas have gains as high as 12 dB. Handheld transceivers (walkie talkies) are permitted and have transmit power from 500 mW to 5 W (full legal power) and are relatively cheap compared to full-sized transceivers. Operation in the band is restricted to modes F3E and G3E (FM or PM of analogue voice telephony) except for channels 22 and 23, which are data modes only.
   Hobby grade models can be fine tuned, unlike most toy grade models. For example, cars often allow toe-in, camber and caster angle adjustments, just like their real-life counterparts. All modern "computer" radios allow each function to be adjusted over several parameters for ease in setup and adjustment of the model. Many of these transmitters are capable of "mixing" several functions at once, which is required for some models.
   SCA-based infrastructure software and rapid development tools for SDR education and research are provided by the Open Source SCA Implementation Embedded (OSSIE) project. The Wireless Innovation Forum funded the SCA Reference Implementation project, an open source implementation of the SCA specification. (SCARI) can be downloaded for free.
  
  Section::::Current usage.:Amateur and home use.
  
  A typical amateur software radio uses a direct conversion receiver. Unlike direct conversion receivers of the more distant past, the mixer technologies used are based on the quadrature sampling detector and the quadrature sampling exciter.
   Another recent trend is for the hobbyist to employ multiple radios and antennas connected to a personal computer. Through advanced radio control software, the radios can be automatically ganged together, so that tuning one radio can tune all the others in the group. This DXing technique is sometimes referred to as diversity reception and facilitates easy "A to B" comparison of different antennas and receivers for a given signal. For more details on "PC Radios" or computer controlled shortwave receivers see the discussion in Shortwave listening.
   VHF is the first band at which wavelengths are small enough that efficient transmitting antennas are short enough to mount on vehicles and handheld devices, a quarter wave whip antenna at VHF frequencies is 25 cm to 2.5 meter (10 inches to 8 feet) long. So the VHF and UHF wavelengths are used for two-way radios in vehicles, aircraft, and handheld transceivers and walkie-talkies. Portable radios usually use whips or rubber ducky antennas, while base stations usually use larger fiberglass whips or collinear arrays of vertical dipoles.
  