Communication radios

[MrPstv]

Hi,

In the process of looking to purchase Communication radios for our site,what would you recommend?

 

I know we would have to purchase a license for £75.00

Any ideas please?

[AndiMarv]

I bought 10 a few years back from a company quite close to us called 'Maximon Solutions'

 

The radios they sold are labelled MAX-728 and are FAR FAR better than anything we tried before, we can get perfect signal all the way across our campus and even in the maintenance shed (which I am sure is some sort of Faraday cage)

[Oaktech]

kenwood...

[sdc]

Kenwood are indeed very good, as are the Motorolas we use. In fact, in my previous school, we also had Motorolas - Handie-Coms they were called - and there are a couple on a popular auction site near you right now (nothing to do with me, though - I have several of these for personal use and wouldn't part with them!)

[MatthewL]

Motorola would be what I would go for or Icom.

[K.C.Leblanc]

We have some iCom radios, they only get used for fire evacuations, but work very well.

 

I've also used some hired Motorola Radios for a music festival. They had a superb range. I was able to have a conversation with someone three quarters of a mile away.

 

Just make sure you have properly set down policy on frequencies to put people off doing their own thing. And in an education environment you will need to do some training.

[andyturpie]

We got a quad pack of Cobra for less that £100 Maplin. A few dead spots around our site, but they do cover quite a distance.

[Oaktech]

I used to be a staunch Icom fan, but i have noticed recently that their quality is going downhill. The specs on the gear looks good, but they are failing to deliver it. I did a pretty average event (2000attendees and 250 site staff, plus 60 security) where the entire site was on brand new Icom portables from a hire company and the battery life was really quite poor, typically less than 1/2 of that stated by specs. The audio quality deteriorated noticeably across the reception range, and the reception range was nowhere near what was specc'd. It was an open field and there was very little to obstruct signal.

 

I have since had radios from the same batch for a smaller event and every single one had a replacement battery, apparently from ebay, which were vastly superior in life to the genuine icom ones at half the price.

 

I was chatting to the hire company rep and he was saying how disapointed they were with them, he brought up all the things i'd noted, but also that they were more fragile than expected and they'd had more failures of those radios in 6 months than they'd had in 5 years of operating Icom. Their prefered options were kenwood or motorola, but they were also considering vertex standard.

[john]

I have got a number of Vitai 8800 radios from Two Way Radios | Walkie Talkies | Buy Online 2 Way and they have been excellent licensed units I went to the far side of the school field and had a crystal clear conversation with my techy in the basement of our main site as well as furthest extreme of our owned land and it was all good and much better than un-licensed radios.

 

I know @Soulfish uses them as well as he showed me them at his place and I was impressed with the price and supplier so went for them as well

[MrPstv]

Just tested the Vitai 8800 and i have to say they have a very good range and quality was good.

The issue i have is if we spend a tad over a £1000 say on these Vitai 8800 and they dont last six months it's my head on the block.

I appreciate the feedback from you guys!!!!

Motorola is tempting as they have been around for donkeys years, i am also swayed to get the Vitai 8800's as they ticked all the boxes,but not sure how long these have been on the market.

 

I have got a number of Vitai 8800 radios from Two Way Radios | Walkie Talkies | Buy Online 2 Way and they have been excellent licensed units I went to the far side of the school field and had a crystal clear conversation with my techy in the basement of our main site as well as furthest extreme of our owned land and it was all good and much better than un-licensed radios.

 

I know @Soulfish uses them as well as he showed me them at his place and I was impressed with the price and supplier so went for them as well

[laserblazer]

What sort of area do you need to cover. If it's less than 800m and not too many buildings, then back to back, licence-free, PMR466 will probably do PMR446 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I'd be inclined to go for some cheap Cobra radios or similar and if they do what you want, then look at more robust ICOM or Kenwood. Our dinner ladies use Cobras and they are fine but already a couple have broken displays. At our Sailing Centre, we use ICOM and they are far better in the conditions.If you don't get the coverage, you may need a base station, which will require a licence and a will cost a lot more money. Edited May 10, 2012 by laserblazer

[plexer]

We use Kenwood TK-3170 keypad versions programmed with a selcal list of all the other radios so contacting someone is as simple as selecting them in the list an hitting a button.

 

The other persons radio then rings.

 

These are licensed, the only issue we have is the site managers workshop if all the windows re closed as it's a metal container.

 

Ben

[MrPstv]

Update:

We decided to purchase the Vitai 8800 and all staff are happy with these units.Tested loan units and the range is suitable and the quality is good for our split site.

[Gongalong]

We've just bought some Vitai 8800's from Two Way Radio, and the audio quality is very poor, muffled, to the point where we almost can't hear what the other person is saying. Anyone else experienced this?

 

We're following up with Two Way Radio.

[john]

We've just bought some Vitai 8800's from Two Way Radio, and the audio quality is very poor, muffled, to the point where we almost can't hear what the other person is saying. Anyone else experienced this?

 

We're following up with Two Way Radio.

 

The only time I had that was when the receptionist kept covering the mic hole on it and trying to eat it when using it as it was always fine with the AM user but the PM user was the issue.....

[Gongalong]

This seems to be a mix of distance and structures between the radios. The more structures, the more muffled it gets. The more distance, the more interference on the radio. A shame, as I'd hoped these would easily cover our site.

[forkies]

I purchase baofeng 888s radios for £11 each, they are 5w (max power under the £75/5year license) and we program them in house. Work really well through our buildings and across our site.

 

(We also have some uv-5x model but users find them too complicated because they have buttons)

[Blue_Cookeh]

We went a little more "full on" with our radios and got a whole setup done by an external company. We got a bunch of Motorola SL1600 roamers, a couple of DP4800 for site agent etc, and a couple of DM4600 for the offices.

 

Well worth the investment, batteries last long enough, range is brilliant, easy to lock down for staff use, and has a load of different talk groups/ability for announcements and other stuff.

 

These required a license from OFCOM.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Blue_Cookeh

[Gongalong]

We ended up getting the Vitai VDG-380 radios, which are digital. They cover our site without issue. The 8800s were nowhere near good enough to cover our site, so beware those with big sites!

 

Kudos to Two Way Radio who were very helpful https://www.twoway-radio.co.uk/