Looking to improve wide-area coverage for seamless communication? Motorola Radio Repeaters could be what you need.
Motorola two-way radio repeaters are affordable alternatives to improve wide-area coverage, provide better in-building coverage, and assist you in getting the most out of wireless communications.
- Looking to improve wide-area coverage for seamless communication? Motorola Radio Repeaters could be what you need.
- What is a Radio Repeater?
- How Does a Radio Repeater Work?
- How Two-way Radio Repeaters Increase Productivity and Safety?
- Improved Coverage and Wide-Area Range
- Better In-Building Penetration
- App Support
- Key Parts to a Repeater
- Which System Type to Choose – Conventional or Trunking
- What Can a Repeater Do for You?
What is a Radio Repeater?
A repeater links two radio operations together to improve transmission clarity in larger communication areas and create better in-building coverage. It works by receiving a frequency from two-way radios and retransmitting them in real-time to the opposite radios on the channel or talk group. Repeaters operate at a better power for portable mobile radios and can broadcast to a much greater distance.
Additional infrastructure is necessary for repeaters to be established correctly. This could be a base station antenna, duplexer or multicoupler, racking, and storage, or low-loss coaxial cable. Positioning your repeater at a tower location or tall building to allow for the optimum coverage possible is also an option.
If you’re wondering whether or not a two-way radio repeater can help to boost productivity and ensure safety at work, here are some situations where a repeater system can come in handy for your business:
- Business operations in multiple places across the city,
- Operations in a large building or facility especially with a large amount of electronic or heavy equipment in place,
- Poor in-building penetration when having communication between floors or blocks,
- Make full use of Motorola MOTOTRBO digital radio applications or repeater features.
How Does a Radio Repeater Work?
A two-way radio repeater is mounted at an uplifted height like a rooftop and connected to an antenna system, so it can receive weak signals and cover a much wider area. A repeater base station can extend your communication range of a low-power portable radio from an indoor area to many kilometres, nationwide or even worldwide. A Motorola repeater is a particularly powerful radio – portable radios operate on 5 watts, mobile radios operate on 25 watts or more, while repeaters are even more powerful as they can operate between 50 and 100 watts.
How Two-way Radio Repeaters Increase Productivity and Safety?
Simply put, a repeater receives a poor or weak radio wave then amplifies and rebroadcasts it. This expands the general range of your two-way radio.
Even with superior conditions, most two-way radios’ reach has a limit without a repeater. A repeater system is found at a better elevation. This equipment receives and re-transmits signals while employing a higher transmit power to reach its intended destination. Commercial businesses, emergency response personnel, police departments, and ambulance services benefit from using repeaters for seamless transmission and reception of critical communications.
Repeaters are built using two different frequencies that connect with each other effortlessly. One frequency transmits the message while the other receives it. To use a repeater system, you’ll have to connect your radio so that it can transmit the repeater’s output frequency and enable the radio’s offset mode. Subsequently, the radio transmits on the repeater’s input frequency and reverts to the repeater’s output frequency when the radio isn’t in use for transmission.
Most radio repeaters offer real-time transmission of messages, using merely around 50 milliseconds to process and resend a sign.
Improved Coverage and Wide-Area Range
For workers on the move or on the road who are required to speak far away from the location, two-way radio repeaters offer wide-area coverage so a team can communicate within a metropolitan area and across states.
Construction companies can communicate with their whole crew across multiple sites with the press of a button. Enhanced audio features including noise-cancelling technology ensure clear and undisrupted communications despite loud noises from heavy equipment or the howling sound of strong winds in the background.
Whether you deliver fuel, support airport or railway services, or work in seaports or warehouses, Motorola two-way radio repeaters offer scalable communication solutions. A two-way radio repeater is a worthwhile investment that will allow your business to expand service areas effectively without compromising on productivity.
Better In-Building Penetration
Concrete walls, multiple floors, and basements can make effective communications through two-way radios challenging. The inclusion of a Motorola two-way radio repeater in your business can increase your coverage to otherwise unreachable areas with ease.
Hospitals, multi-storey malls, and buildings are excellent examples of the type of structure in which a two-way repeater can offer better in-building coverage. Its penetration through every floor, room, pedestrian walkway, and basement ensures teams can communicate instantly and effectively while keeping employees safe.
Businesses with manufacturing plants in multiple states can enjoy the MOTOTRBO Capacity Max system that lets you attach more than 250 sites with more than 3000 users per site.
App Support
Hotels, utilities, and property management can access a variety of applications to serve their unique business needs. MOTOTRBO digital two-way radio technology offers advanced applications which will certainly improve productivity and enhance employee safety. Some additional Motorola application options include:
• An alarm system dispatches emergency and business-critical alarms, work tickets, and notifications and monitors for alarms cleverly at all times.
• Job Ticketing is a merged ticketing system for dispatchers to create, assign and track job tickets through the radio network system,
• Centralised Lone Worker allows companies to check in on the wellbeing of their lone workers.
• Man Down Notifier employs intelligent detection algorithms to detect when a worker is in need of help or has suffered a fall or got into an accident.
• Real-Time Location System is a positioning solution that integrates Bluetooth and GPS to provide real-time indoor and outdoor tracking and automatic identification with a Motorola radio.
Key Parts to a Repeater
Contrary to what you might think, the technology behind a repeater isn’t that complex. Other than a couple of additional components, it’s pretty much similar to that of a typical portable two-way radio only with tons more power. Here are 5 key components that make up a repeater:
- Antenna – Must be installed at a higher region, like on the highest part of a mountain or building, for maximum line-of-sight (an unobstructed path between a transmitting and a receiving antenna). In other words, you’ll get the widest range and coverage possible. Just one antenna is required if you’re deploying a repeater with a duplexer.
- Duplexer – Filters and separates the signals transmitting from and to one antenna. Prevent the desensitisation of the boundaries between transmitting and receiving frequencies.
- Receiver – Picks up incoming radio signals. Can only pick up weak radio waves only when it is sensitive enough.
- Controller – The key element of an operation. This little computer controls the whole repeater which includes station identification, transmitter activation, autopatch, etc.
- Transmitter – Sends signals back out with an incredible boost in strength. Two ways to operate the transmitter – intermittent or continuous duty.
Which System Type to Choose – Conventional or Trunking
Conventional and Trunking are the two main repeater system types you can decide on.
Conventional systems have certain channels to which frequencies are assigned. One can assign a channel to security, another to maintenance, and the rest split between various departments. The conventional system is set and stays exactly how it is programmed based on how you designate it.
If you have a smaller group of users that have an established communication protocol, network and definitive talk groups, then the conventional system is ideal for you.
On the other hand, trunking has frequencies and channels that are shared only when necessary. One channel is usually designated as the control channel. Specifically, it determines and assigns channels for users to transmit on once they wind up their radio. Once the conversation is over, that channel is then accessible for the following users.
Trunking offers more efficient use of the radio frequencies as it has greater system capacity. It is accessible to everyone, as opposed to a conventional system that has a frequency set for only one particular group to use once they get to communicate. Given that users aren’t sending voice transmissions on a certain channel majority of the time, this enables more users to be included in the system.
Trunking is fitting for large organisations that rely on interdepartmental communications and for those that have frequent transmissions across many sites.
What Can a Repeater Do for You?
Repeaters play a vital role in a business in some ways. Not only do they increase your radio range by learning radio transmissions and sending them back out with a strong signal boost to reach further, but they also enhance the range by overcoming obstacles that block the line-of-sight needed for effective coverage. Radio transmissions can travel over the obstruction when placed on the highest zone of a hill or building.
We’ve alluded to how a Trunked Repeater System can offer you extra user capacity through shared channels rather than set channels. That also means better, efficient use of the frequencies and the inclusion of more radio users on the system.
Repeaters also can link multiple sites together. Let’s say you’re a contractor and you’ve got various job sites to manage that a typical portable radio alone cannot handle. A repeater system connects those sites and enables you to speak to and contact your crew members stationed anywhere within your radio system, turning your standard portable two-way radio into an extended range device.
Repeater systems are also synonymous with enhanced security. Motorola’s MOTOTRBO systems are designed for the tightest communication security available. Some of their security measures include:
1) System Access Authorization before allowing a user to listen to or send transmissions.
2) Remote Disable and Enable of individual units when lost or stolen, keeping your communications discreet and your exchanged coverts confidential.
We hope this article has helped you in learning more about Motorola Radio Repeater. If you are interested in buying accessories for Motorola repeaters, feel free to contact us anytime.