Base stations or repeater?

I work in a processing facility in rural Alaska. We are currently using only Icom F3011 handhelds for daily communications. Due to the amount of electrical noise certain areas of the plant the 2 departments that communicate with each other the most can barely hear each other. In addition the production manager would like to extend his range a bit to be able to communicate with the yard crew easier. As the head electrician I’ve been tasked with fixing that, but know nothing about radios…
I’ve been researching and the 2 options I’ve come up with are either add a repeater into the mix, or just get a couple base station radios with decent antennas. I believe the 1 department is the cause of the issue being that their control room is right in the middle of 13 refrigeration compressors running between 300 and 450 hp motors, with cable tray and conduit everywhere, and their counterpart is on the opposite corner of the building. I’m thinking if I were to put a base station in their control room and run the antenna out of their area out to the main processing floor that would solve that. The main question on that is how long can the lead wire for an antenna be before line loss is a problem?
As far as the manager I think just a base unit in his office and running an antenna outside to the rooftop would be fine for his communication with yard crew. His thought is that a repeater would help for everyone with communication, which I don’t really think is a problem myself, and repeaters are a little more complicated than what we need. We only use 2 frequencies - 1 for production and 1 for maintenance/refrigeration. The production channel has CONSTANT chatter all day and night with people constantly talking over each other. I understand that a repeater receives on 1 channel and transmits on another, would that be an issue in a place with no radio etiquette? And then could the same repeater be used for the maintenance channel also, and then would we need to have 4 channels available on our handhelds to accommodate sending on 2 channels and receiving on 2 separate channels? My head is spinning… Seems like the 2 base station idea using our 2 existing frequencies is much more simple.
Sorry for the long post, I think I’m complicating a simple question, but don’t want to spend the money and time either way and not get the results we’re looking for.
Thanks for taking the time to read this mess.

Hello,
Please contact one of are sales staff at (888) 569-9499 from 9:00am to 6:pm Est and speak with them. They will be able to help you understand all of you options and help you make the best decision. Rob or Anthony are who you would look to speak with.

That’s the best advice. A phone call can be the most instructive. It would take very long posts to answer your specific problem.

In general, though. Repeaters are what you use when you have coverage problems. An industrial site has lots of places where radios just don’t have clear paths to other areas. So you stick a repeater in the centre of the site, as high as you can. This means the antennas and the actual electronics. It creates a zone where anyone within it can talk to anyone else within it. Interference and loud noises are not really repeater issues and a nice high antenna will ‘hear’ interference even better!

Thank you for the replies. Our season was just cut short here so I’ll have plenty of time to get this figured out. I’ll make some phone calls and make sure it’s done right.

Thanks again!