Hey guys, I know this isnt a question regarding HAM… so I apologize for that… But I couldnt think of another community that I could ask, since my knowledge of radio comms is so limited.
We run a non profit gaming convention, and we were looking for an affordable comms option for contacting one another across a pretty large INDOOR area. We bought some radios that served us in a less enclosed space… but we have moved venues, and the block structure and range seems to be impeding our ability to reliably communicate.
I wondered if anyone could recommend an affordable (I am almost positive there will be no cheap options. lol… but I had to ask) option for a few handesets, that we could find repeaters, to strengthen the signal, so we could stay in contact… or a more powerful out of the box solution that wouldnt require repeaters.
Again, I 1) apologize for the non HAMmy question and 2) for my general lack of understanding of radio comms, harware and verbiage. To say I have a basic knowledge in this tech would be giving me too much credit. :) We all have cellphones, but we end up missing a lot of messages on them… so we wanted a better option if there is one.
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What region are you in?
Eastern US, West Virginia to be precise.
I don’t know much about the US, but I think you (might) be looking for GMRS. It’s meant for personal and business communication, and you can set up repeaters.
You would need a $35 licence from the FCC for each family who wants to use it. This is valid for 10 years.
If you don’t care about repeaters, MURS is cheaper because it doesn’t require a license.
You could try some Motorola DTR or DRL radios if you want something license free and not super expensive. Motorola claims they cover 300,000 sq ft indoors. They put out 1W on 915MHz, they use frequency hopping spread spectrum, and they have digital audio.
The problem you’re going to encounter is that any radio system capable of covering your entire area is going to need some sort of license, either individual or group. You probably can’t require your volunteers to pay the FCC $35 for a GMRS license, and ham radio requires an exam, so that’s probably out, too.
That pretty much only leaves business licenses. Yes, there is MURS, which is license free, and might work better than what I am assuming are Walmart FRS radios, but still runs the risk of communication failing when you need it.
If I was in charge of a convention, I’d talk to the company that supplies your AV equipment about who to rent business radios from. They probably have recommendations. If you don’t have an AV company, you can Google for “radio rentals West Virginia”, there’s a few options. They can help you with all the licensing, and will provide all the radio hardware. This is not going to be cheap, but will probably end up being less expensive than trying to set up your own repeater, and all the associated licensing headaches.
All the volunteers could operate under the site license. Maybe?
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How’s your WiFi infrastructure? Assuming you have the area covered with WiFi you could go PoC (PushToTalk Over Cellular). There are dedicated handsets you can use for this for as low as USD$50 ea on Ali Express. Being that it’s just WiFi there are no licenses to worry about. Having a 2 way radio type handset makes it pretty familiar, buy you can very much use it with existing mobile handsets. Zello seems to be the de-facto standard for this but i believe other options exist.
