The Stranger Things walkie-talkies: the Realistic TRC-214 and Cerebro's radio
Universe · Cult objects · The radios
Before cell phones, there were walkie-talkies: the group's, with their long antennas, are the first tool of the show, and they become, season after season, an amateur radio, a ten-meter antenna and a way to talk to the other world. Here are the models, the scenes, and what they tell.
The essentials
- The boys' model: Realistic TRC-214, vendu by RadioShack
- Reach: a few kilometers, enough for Hawkins
- Cerebro: Dustin's antenna, Season 3
- The Heathkit radio: the middle-school radio, lent by Mr. Clarke
Contents
The TRC-214 walkie-talkie, the group's voice
The walkie-talkie of Mike, Lucas and Dustin is a real model: the Realistic TRC-214, sold by RadioShack in the early 80s, big as a brick, with a telescoping antenna half a meter long. Its range, a few kilometers, matches that of a small town: the boys can talk to each other from one house to another, which, in 1983, is a luxury.
From the first episode, the walkie is an investigation tool: it is through it that the group organizes its searches for Will, that Lucas and Mike argue, and that Eleven learns to say “Mike.” Its rule, “code red,” “over,” is that of children playing soldiers.
Dustin's T-shirt, radio included.
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The Heathkit radio and Will's voice
To talk farther, there is the AV club's amateur radio set at the middle school, a Heathkit that Mr. Clarke ordered. It is Eleven who, on it, makes Will's voice heard from the Upside Down, with her eyes closed: the scene where the party understands he is alive. The radio does nothing technically; it is a support for Eleven's power, and a symbol: the waves cross what walls do not.
The same idea comes back every season: the Upside Down disturbs radios, lights, magnets. Listening is already seeing.
Will's codeIn Season 2, possessed, Will communicates in Morse, banging on pipes: “Close gate”. The party decodes it with the AV club manuals. The radio is never far from the words.
Cerebro: Dustin's antenna
Summer 1985: Dustin comes back from science camp with a girlfriend, Suzie, in Utah, thousands of kilometers away. To talk to her, he builds Cerebro, a ten-meter amateur radio antenna, mounted at the top of a Hawkins hill, named after Professor Xavier's machine in X-Men. His friends help him carry it, with some groaning.
Cerebro does not pick up Suzie right away. It picks up something else: a transmission in Russian, coded, which launches the whole of season 3. And it is through Cerebro, in the finale, that Dustin finally reaches Suzie and gets Planck's constant, in exchange for a song.
Why the radio is the thread of the show
The Duffers grew up with walkie-talkies, and they made them more than a period accessory: the only means of communication the adults do not control. No tapped landline, no parents in the room; children talking to each other at night, from one bedroom to another. The whole show rests on that idea that a group of kids can know things the world does not, and the radio is the tool that makes it possible.
The last seasons' radios
Season 4 scatters the characters, and the radio comes back as a link: Dustin and Eddie communicate by walkie-talkie between the real world and the Upside Down, with a delay that makes every exchange anguishing. In Season 5, under quarantine, the walkies are again the only network that escapes the army. The show ends as it began: kids talking to each other over the air.
| Object | Season | Key scene |
|---|---|---|
| TRC-214 walkie-talkie | 1 | Will's searches, Lucas's “code red” |
| Middle-school Heathkit radio | 1 | Will's voice through Eleven |
| Cerebro | 3 | The Russian message, then the duet with Suzie |
| Eddie and Dustin's walkies | 4 | The guitar-solo countdown |
The Mike figure, walkie in hand.
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Every radio in the show, in one table
| Device | Season | What it allows |
|---|---|---|
| The group's walkie-talkies | 1 to 3 | The boys' private channel, and Mike's 353 calls to Eleven in 1984 |
| The audiovisual club's radio | 1 | Will's voice, picked up from the Upside Down by Eleven |
| Cerebro | 3 and 4 | Dustin's antenna on the hill: Suzie, then the Russian message |
| Steve and Robin's radios | 3 | The link with the base under Starcourt and with Dustin |
| The prison radio | 4 | The contact among Hopper, Dmitri, and Yuri |
| WSQK | 5 | The station where Robin broadcasts, the command post of the crawls, and the tower of the final battle |
WSQK: the radio that ends the show
The last season makes the radio the heart of the setup. Steve and Robin work at station WSQK, where Robin hosts her morning show; the group follows Hopper's crawls in the Upside Down from there; and it is from there that the coded signal goes out, a song played on the air, which announces a crawl that same evening without the army understanding. The station's tower becomes, in the finale, the ladder the group climbs to the Abyss.
The thread opened in 1983 by Joyce and her lights closes this way: the whole show, people talked through walls with the means of the time, and the last battle is fought at the top of a radio transmitter. The 1983 walkie-talkie model has become, at the end, a whole station.
For collectors
The group's walkie-talkie is an American big-box model from the 80s, with a telescopic antenna and Morse code, sold by an electronics chain now gone. Period examples turn up secondhand, often out of order; replicas were produced after Season 1, and decorative versions, with no electronics, exist for shelves.
Cerebro, Dustin's antenna, is a makeshift assembly inspired by ham-radio antennas, set up on a hill at the end of season 3 then reused in 1986. It does not exist in stores, but fans have built replicas for conventions, generally lighter than the one Dustin hauls to the top of the hill.
For the rest of the gear, the shop answers, done.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the model of the Stranger Things walkie-talkies?
The Realistic TRC-214, sold by RadioShack in the early 80s. It is seen in every season.
What is Cerebro?
The amateur radio antenna Dustin built in Season 3 to talk to Suzie, named after the X-Men machine. It picks up the Russian message.
How does the group hear Will on the radio?
Thanks to Eleven, who uses the middle school's Heathkit radio as a support to project her mind into the Upside Down.
Can you still buy a TRC-214?
Only secondhand: the model is no longer made. Replicas inspired by the show exist.
What is WSQK?
The Hawkins radio station, in 1987, where Robin hosts her morning show and from which the group follows the crawls; its tower serves as a ladder to the Abyss in the finale.
Can you buy the walkie-talkie from the show?
Period examples turn up secondhand, often out of order; replicas and decorative versions were produced after Season 1.
How many times does Mike call Eleven in 1984?
353 nights in a row, on his walkie-talkie, with no answer. Eleven listens from Hopper's cabin, unable to answer.
What message does Dustin pick up on Cerebro in 1985?
A message in Russian, recorded and decoded by Robin: the Soviets' weekly delivery to Starcourt, "when blue meets yellow in the west."