Your team is spread out all over the building, site, or city, and you need to talk to them frequently throughout the work day. Dialing on the phone is time-consuming and isn’t practical when contacting more than one or two people at a time. Push-to-Talk (PTT) devices, such as two-way radios or walkie-talkies, are purpose-built for that application. These devices have continued to evolve with digital radios, LTE radios, WIFI radios, and even Satellite radios. Each of them allows one push for everyone in the group to hear and be able to respond to your call. Read More...

Two-way radios have been around a long time.  There’s a reason for that.  Radios have and continue to provide a useful function for many.  Hobbyists use them for fun.  Boaters use them for safety.  Businesses use them to streamline crew communications.  And radios are a vital piece of the public safety personnel’s communication system.

Before you can talk on a radio, you have to talk about radios to select the right radio for your application.  Yet, some terms may be unfamiliar or confusing to you.  Don’t let terminology get in the way. Read More...

This week the crew will be 30 miles east of Seattle to repave and perform maintenance on the bridge over the Snoqualmie River.  The road will be closed and flaggers will need to talk regularly throughout the day for the duration of the project.  The following week they will be 50+ miles south at the base of Mount Rainier repaving the switch backs on Highway 410. So, it goes, week after week, the crew moves around the Puget Sound to finish one project after another. The crew needs to talk to each other at the site to get the jobs done efficiently and safely.  The conditions are tough and often times there is other radio traffic in the area.  The crew needs a professional quality radio that can keep up with the day in and day out operations, privacy codes, and in some cases, advanced features like man down or emergency call.  Those inexpensive bubble packed radios you find in retail stores aren’t made for this environment.  They are family camping trip radios. Read More...

It was the summer of 2019. The weather was good, and with school out, it was the time to address the improvements and upgrades they discovered they needed over that school year. The school district used the local dealer’s multi-site repeater system (unfortunately not Icom’s) to communicate district-wide. There was just one problem with a single school – their radios didn’t work inside the school. So, Rick, the school district’s IT tech, called their dealer to help solve this problem. Read More...