I work at a large Ford dealership and we have recently added on significantly. We need to communicate up to aprox. 400 - 500 yards constantly throughout any day. The issue is there are 4 to 5 buildings in between and the 2 communicating are warehouses full of sheet metal and shop lifts, compressors, etc. I was wondering if these were suitable or even ideal for this? Thank you.
Well, they’re perfectly functional radios, and have decent power output and facilities, and here in the UK, they’re licensable. Not sure if that applies where you are. The real issue is the location. Metal framed buildings are well know for making comms difficult. A good guide is how well your phones work in these buildings? If phone coverage is poor then any radio will be the same. There are plenty of ways to cure this, but the price point for the samcom radio is very different from how much a problem solving package will cost with extra devices to make it work. Radio to radio is so variable, you really need to simply try it and see. Buy from somebody who will take them back. The hosts of this forum are worth talking to. They may even have systems you can hire for a while to test the site out? Pretty much its a case of if you find the site is too restrictive, then no radio to radio system will be different. Actually, thats not correct. There are now some system i have been trying that might do the trick? LoRa. So called long range. Have a look for Retevis RB24. Each radio acts as a repeater, so if you have a number of the radios dotted about on your site, each radio only needs to reach the next nearest one, so they mesh together and create a working system, even with distance or metal clad buildings. I have been experimenting with these and am very impressed. My office is in a basement, and i cannot get from the office to my home with any of my radios. My home is only 1.5 miles away, and has a repeater on it. Even that cannot get to the office. However, with one of these radios just sitting in my car on the car park outside, office to home easily works. The radio in my car just relays the office through to home. It works amazingly well. It’s a bit of a grey area licensing it. The spread spectrum system is ok for use in the amateur band if you are licensed, as I am but while it can operate on our UK business channels, its not using a single frequency. Oddly, it does not seem to cause any interference, and ordinary radios do not receive anything, so nobody knows its there without more sophisticated test gear. I asked our regulator for an opinion and they’re still thinking after many months.
That range is doable, but it is always hard to predict performance without actually trying them out. You will also need a programming cable and software to program them to your company’s assigned business frequencies. They are a business class radio, so you will need a business licence from FCC in U.S. or IC if in Canada. You cannot use the default frequencies they come with unless one happens to match your business’s assigned frequency. Any use of business radios without a licence and an assigned frequency is subject to fines and can also possibly interfere with public service frequencies in your area.
If you do have a business licence, also look at the Wouxun KG-824B that our forum hosts at buytwowayradios sells. Wouxun is about the best quality in the class of cheaper Chinese radios, and we beat ours pretty bad at the road race track and they still function. They are not a Motorola however, and if they break, you buy another one, like any of the other Chinese radios.
If your company does not have a business licence and assigned frequencies, there are some good FRS radios on the market. Our forum hosts can recommend some for you. They are 2-watt radios, but power output has less to do with range than antenna height, obstructions in between and the quality of the receiver circuit. The downside is that you share the same public frequencies as anyone else on FRS and GMRS channels, so you could get interference from every kid and drive-through within a one mile radius. Wouxun also makes some good FRS radios.
Normally, I would not recommend consumer-grade radios for a professional business like yourselves though. You need them to work and you need them to last for years. I would therefore recommend you look at the Motorola DTR/DLR line of licence-free digital radios from our hosts at buytwowayradios. They have about the best range of any UHF two-way radio (no radio on earth can defy the laws of physics, which is why I say to ignore ALL manufacturers’ claims of range) and they are digital so you could perfect clarity in your calls. They are much more expensive but totally private and will last many years. The DLR/DTR radios are ideal for penetrating buildings and windows.
Hmmmm while Motorola make wonderful products, business radios are just as prone to dropping, smashing, having the antennas used as handles, and generally being abused - as cheaper ones. Over £300 is typical for a Motorola ‘cheap’ commercial product like these. I’d also point out that the best digital quality is less than analogue. However, digital does have advantages - you either hear the same audio quality, or no audio at all - with a thin point where it gets choppy. If you can get 6 radios for the price of one, you can buy a few to use as spares, or just increase the pool over the minimum size. Motorola radios are tough and dependable, but when the break, it’s a lot of money to throw away. I’ve had Kenwood business radios in my hire stock for years. The radios have been really good. However, looking at a pile of returned from hire ones, I need to open a new bag of antennas, find half a dozen knobs and swap at least 3 battery packs. Two seem to have fallen into what looks like tar, and another has a sort of top to bottom deep scar from contact with something. That one is unrecoverable. A new one is £450.
Businesses are rarely not wanting to spend money - either at the outset, or in the future. My choice is now 100% cheap and throw away, because the cheap ones are now so capable. Putting Motorola and say, Retevis on a test set reveals receiver sensitivity to be very similar, and output power consistent with either a high or low power radio. Range is rarely in my experience better with Brand A vs Brand B because the electronics now are all good. For my customers choosing is often about things like battery life, chargers, and how loud they go, when stuck in a pocket. I really believe clarity is best on analogue. Once your ear tunes to the low bandwidth, low data rate audio that always shouts ‘digital’, even on the expensive ones, you can understand them, but Motorola comments always say ‘robotic’ - with some users claiming they cannot tell who is speaking. For some uses, digital is also too slow. Never try to cue an event on a digital system with repeaters - one, two, three, GO - results in a delay. Not a long one, but enough for any analogue users to complain the digital users were late! Not important for some things, but for safety critical jobs like crane banksmen? analgue is best. I don’t get the penetrating windows bit? Glass is rarely a problem with RF?