Radios for Church

General Discussion
1

Hello,

I have been researching radios for my church, so I have been educating myself on the technology. Thanks so much for doing the Podcasts. These have been really helpful at connecting the dots. From the Podcasts and the forum, it seems like the Motorola DLR1060 digital radios are the suggested radios for those who don’t have any radios yet. Another bonus is that they are license free.

My church campus is roughly 150,000 sq feet. There are two buildings: Main Santuary (brick building) and Activity Center (metal building). The cell phone reception is very poor in the Activity Center which is a metal building. My biggest question: Will the Motorola DLR1060 be able to communicate between the two buildings? If a cell phone has troubles receiving a signal, wouldn’t a two way radio have the same problem?

If a building has a problem with signal, is the suggestion to get a repeater inside the building? I know that a repeater is not available for the Motorola DLR1060.

Maybe I just need to acquire two radios and test out the situation. I am just gathering information at this time and haven’t settled on a radio yet. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jammers

2

Cell phone signals come from the nearest cell tower. You could be standing right beside someone who is calling you, and the signal could still be bad because it depends on how close the nearest cell tower is. All cell phones go through towers.

Two-way radios go direct from radio to radio, so it depends on how far apart they are and what is in between them that may block the signal. The DTR and DLR series are designed specifically for good penetration in metal, concrete and glass structures. I have gotten upwards of a mile to 2 miles range in a dense residential neighborhood with the DTR and DLR radio, so I simply suggest getting a pair and trying them out.

You actually can get a repeater for the DLR and DTR radios. It is not cheap (because it uses the internals of two DTR radios inside it) and only repeats on one channel, but try out a couple radios first. The repeater is not going to give you much more than 1.5 times the range, for a lot of money. The reason we don’t hear much about repeaters for the Motorola FHSS radios is because the radios already have excellent range for a line-of-sight two way.

3

Welcome ashore Jammers,I hope you like it here :slight_smile: