Help with choosing radios?

Business Radios
1

I run a garden center and nursery landscape business. My nursery is about a 1/2 mile square. I have an office in a metal building. We are using Motorola
Spirit MV-11C VHF radios now. We lose contact about half way back in the field when trying to talk out of my office. These radios are VHF 1 Watt. What would you suggest for a better means of communication. Thanks

2

Are they working fine though when it is radio to radio outside? If so it could be that the VHF signal has a hard time getting to you in the office. I would try UHF radios such as:

http://www.buytwowayradios.com/products/icom/ic-f4001.aspx

or

http://www.buytwowayradios.com/products/olympia/p324.aspx

3

The radio’s do work better when they are both outdoors, but still seems to be pushing them to the limit. I start to get a cracking, static sound when we get much distance between the two and try to talk. My radio’s have brand new batteries in them and fully charged. So you think UHF would do better? I see UHF radio’s with 2 watts and also 4 watts? The one’s I have now are 1 watt VHF. I don’t want to buy and over kill but also don’t want to buy one’s that aren’t powerful enough. I read somewhere that UHF doesn’t transmit as far per watt as VHF? Thanks for your help.

4

Most of the time VHF works much better than UHF out in the open. VHF frequencies are great at traveling long distances over most terrain. If people are around a lot of obstructions outside and are also wanting to communicate with those indoors, UHF has the least interference problems since it is able to penetrate through objects where VHF will not.

Wattage on radios can be a bit misleading. While it is an overall indicator of the potential range/clarity of a radio, how the radio is engineered plays a larger part. Commercial grade radios with 2 watts perform much better than a consumer 5 watt model since they are more efficient. The higher wattage also reduces battery life, though that does not sound like it is as important for you. Since you are already having some transmission range problems, I would probably look for 4 watt commercial grade radios.

5

Thanks Jeff. You have been a great help, Kurt

6

Your key need is to have the ‘base’ unit use an external antenna, mounted on top of the building.

However, the unlicensed services don’t allow that, normally.

7

Thanks Skip

8

Thanks for the info. It helps alot.