TennFordTN
Member
Hey Guys,
I’m a 22 year old college student and I work at a medium to large scale church in the Middle TN area working as a part of Operations. Over the years we’ve done nothing but expand and grow bigger. Our teams do everything from cleaning and moving items to landscaping and large scale projects outdoors. We currently use our smartphones to communicate, but we’ve all been talking about the pros and cons of trying out radios. Smartphones are great, but can be distracting and can slow down the work at hand. I was told before I worked here years ago that we tried FRS Bubble Packs and that apparently didn’t last long. I doubt that we will buy anything soon, but I was told to pitch my idea to my boss since he was curious. So my question is: What system would be good for our situation? What setup (repeaters, no repeaters, TRBO, Analog, DMR) would best suit us?
I’ll put our needs into context. We own roughly 300-350 acres of fairly flat land which includes 15+ houses, 2 large barns, 2 softball fields, our main building, and a secondary auxiliary building. The main building is roughly 225,000 square feet on multiple floors with 4 sanctuaries. The secondary building is roughly 15,000 square feet. The main building sits in a central location to everything else on our campus, so if you think a repeater would be necessary, it would be very accessible. The farthest distance from a portable radio to the central building is .5 mile. The farthest distance from edge to edge of the property is 1.1 miles.
I mention a repeater because one time during a large scale event we had going on, I brought one of my Baofeng UV-82s and a UV-5R just to see how building penetration/range were. With 5 watts, there were a few times I could not hear my co-worker inside (in the depths of the building or basement), but edge to edge of the campus was fine.
Currently we are 8 guys strong on staff, so we would need 8 radios at a minimum. We would probably get one for the front office and a few extra for our team. We also have 6 vehicles we use on a regular basis, but I could see us maybe getting a mobile for 1 or 2 of the heavier used vehicles. I’ve been looking up on the MOTOTRBO and I think I like the features offered, although I’m scared of what the price tag would be.
I don’t know if this is the correct term, but the “selective calling” could come in handy, where my boss could choose to speak to one specific radio instead of everyone, if he needed. I could see us purchasing an SL7000 for my boss, as he is in meetings and such and would want that style, and another “selective calling” radio for the front office to “dispatch” specific radios for different tasks. This all assumes TRBO would be the way to go.
So now I want to know. How does a system like this sound for our criteria? Are there better alternatives? What would you “quote” for us?
I’m a 22 year old college student and I work at a medium to large scale church in the Middle TN area working as a part of Operations. Over the years we’ve done nothing but expand and grow bigger. Our teams do everything from cleaning and moving items to landscaping and large scale projects outdoors. We currently use our smartphones to communicate, but we’ve all been talking about the pros and cons of trying out radios. Smartphones are great, but can be distracting and can slow down the work at hand. I was told before I worked here years ago that we tried FRS Bubble Packs and that apparently didn’t last long. I doubt that we will buy anything soon, but I was told to pitch my idea to my boss since he was curious. So my question is: What system would be good for our situation? What setup (repeaters, no repeaters, TRBO, Analog, DMR) would best suit us?
I’ll put our needs into context. We own roughly 300-350 acres of fairly flat land which includes 15+ houses, 2 large barns, 2 softball fields, our main building, and a secondary auxiliary building. The main building is roughly 225,000 square feet on multiple floors with 4 sanctuaries. The secondary building is roughly 15,000 square feet. The main building sits in a central location to everything else on our campus, so if you think a repeater would be necessary, it would be very accessible. The farthest distance from a portable radio to the central building is .5 mile. The farthest distance from edge to edge of the property is 1.1 miles.
I mention a repeater because one time during a large scale event we had going on, I brought one of my Baofeng UV-82s and a UV-5R just to see how building penetration/range were. With 5 watts, there were a few times I could not hear my co-worker inside (in the depths of the building or basement), but edge to edge of the campus was fine.
Currently we are 8 guys strong on staff, so we would need 8 radios at a minimum. We would probably get one for the front office and a few extra for our team. We also have 6 vehicles we use on a regular basis, but I could see us maybe getting a mobile for 1 or 2 of the heavier used vehicles. I’ve been looking up on the MOTOTRBO and I think I like the features offered, although I’m scared of what the price tag would be.
I don’t know if this is the correct term, but the “selective calling” could come in handy, where my boss could choose to speak to one specific radio instead of everyone, if he needed. I could see us purchasing an SL7000 for my boss, as he is in meetings and such and would want that style, and another “selective calling” radio for the front office to “dispatch” specific radios for different tasks. This all assumes TRBO would be the way to go.
So now I want to know. How does a system like this sound for our criteria? Are there better alternatives? What would you “quote” for us?