Vehicles and mobiles
In-vehicle units for fixed positions in the fleet, with recorded parameters.
Logistics and ports
How many radios does a logistics fleet need, and how do you plan the channels?
Fleet size is not headcount. It follows from concurrent positions, shift overlap and charging — and the channel plan follows from who has to reach whom, not from the size of the yard.
The configuration reference for this environment is specific about where the difficulty sits: coverage spans large yards with steel structures, and handovers happen between shifts rather than between people. Both facts push against the intuitive approach of ordering one radio per employee.
What this note does not do
This note explains how the decision is made. It does not quote a quantity, a coverage result or a channel count for a named facility, because the site does not hold one it can evidence. Anything shown as unconfirmed on the catalogue pages is unconfirmed here too.
Confirm the position with your regulator, your site authority or your freight forwarder before you commit to an order.How to use this note
- Count concurrent positions, not headcount — that gives the working baseline.
- Build the channel plan as access groups, then read the recorded capacities against it.
- Send the position list and the shift pattern.
Sizing the fleet from positions, not people
| Input | Why it changes the number | How to state it |
|---|---|---|
| Concurrent positions | The real demand is how many people are working and reachable at the same moment, not how many are employed. | Count positions on your busiest shift. |
| Shift overlap | At handover two shifts are on the radio at once. That peak, not the average, sizes the fleet. | State the overlap period and how many positions it contains. |
| Charging arrangement | Radios charging cannot be carried. If charging is centralised, charging time is out of service time. | State where charging happens and whether it can be done during a shift. |
| Breakage and loss rate | A yard is a handling environment. A fleet sized exactly to the peak has no headroom. | State whether the figure you need is an operating fleet or a delivered quantity. |
| Vehicles versus people | A vehicle mobile is fitted, not carried, so a vehicle is not a person for sizing purposes. | Split the list into fixed positions and roaming positions. |
| Contractors and visitors | Temporary users are a channel-plan question more often than a hardware question. | State whether contractors need to be reachable on the same system. |
Building the channel plan
The plan is built from who must reach whom, then split so that unrelated traffic does not occupy the same channel. It is not built from the size of the yard. This ordering matters, because a plan built from geography produces channels nobody can use.
- List the access groups: yard operations, gatehouse, drivers, maintenance, supervision, emergency.
- Decide which of those must talk to each other directly, and merge the ones that always do.
- Give emergency and control their own channel and make sure it cannot be occupied by routine traffic.
- Add the plan to the enquiry. Programming is a separate line item and is done per fleet.
What capacity this catalogue records
Capacities recorded here are between five and several thousand, and the differences follow the family rather than the price band. Very large recorded figures are system capacities, not conventional channel counts, and are recorded as such on the identifier pages.
| Recorded channel capacity | Identifiers |
|---|---|
| 1000 | 19 |
| 64 | 11 |
| 16 | 10 |
| 512 | 6 |
| 32 | 5 |
| 99 | 5 |
| TETRA network group/folder management (not a conventional channel count) | 5 |
| 128 | 4 |
| 255 | 4 |
| 512 (standard); 1000 (Enhancement Level 1) | 4 |
| TMO 2048 talkgroups; DMO 1024 talkgroups | 3 |
| 1000 (standard); 3000 (Enhancement Level 2) | 2 |
| 16 (DM1400) /160 (DM1600, firmware-dependent) | 2 |
| 256 | 2 |
| 3000 | 2 |
| 512 (standard); 1000 (extended) | 2 |
| 6 | 2 |
| 1250 | 1 |
| 16 (conventional channels; exact capacity depends on the system configuration) | 1 |
| 16 (GP340Ex) / 255 (GP380Ex) | 1 |
| 160 | 1 |
| 8 | 1 |
| Official documentation does not confirm a fixed value | 1 |
| System-dependent (Motorola official specification: system-dependent) | 1 |
Terminal access rules are a separate constraint
Terminal and port authorities may restrict which bands are permitted on site, and that restriction is independent of what your own licence covers. Confirm it before specifying a band rather than after the order is placed.
Steel and coverage
Large yards with steel structures and stacked containers are the case where handheld-to-handheld reach is least predictable, and where the coverage answer is least likely to be a handset answer. The configuration reference lists coverage extension for steel-heavy areas as part of the standard logic. Whether it is needed on your site is a survey finding.
Not covered here
- A quantity for a named facility, or a spare percentage to apply.
- Coverage across a specific yard, with its particular steel and container density.
- Any statement that a particular band is permitted at a particular terminal.
What to put in the first message
Every one of these removes a round trip. The enquiry page composes a brief containing them; you send it from your own mail or messaging app.
- Destination country — this decides the approved variant and the marking.
- The frequency range you are licensed to use, in MHz.
- Quantity per site, and whether spares are included in that number.
- Operating environment, if it is classified (hazardous area, mine, tunnel).
- Whether the units must arrive programmed, and if so the channel plan.
- Positions per shift, and the peak count during the handover overlap.
- Roaming positions versus fixed positions such as gatehouses.
- Where radios will be charged, and whether charging happens within the shift.
- The access groups you need, and who must reach whom.
- Whether terminal access rules restrict the band you may bring on site.
Questions this note answers
It usually overshoots. The demand is concurrent reachable positions, so the peak overlap shift is the figure to work from, plus whatever headroom your loss and breakage rate justifies.
By test, not by yard size. Steel density and container stacking change the answer far more than the measured area does. Treat it as a survey item and leave room for it in the budget rather than assuming it away.
Usually, as extra users on the existing plan rather than extra channels. Whether they need to be on your system at all is a commercial and security decision before it is a technical one.
Not automatically. If the requirement is voice within access groups, analog may serve. The point at which digital earns its place is when individual calling, text or location is actually needed — see the analog or digital note.
Other notes written against the same decision — Industry configurations.
- Radios for hotel and hospitality staff — which builds, and how many channels?
In a guest-facing operation the radio is visible to customers, is carried for a full shift, and is handed to people who started this morning. Those three facts set the specification.
- How many radios and which build for a mining site?
Mining ranks requirements differently from an office or a hotel: the equipment is abused, shifts are long, and a flat battery stops a section rather than a conversation.
- One catalogue, six operating environments — what actually changes
Every buyer draws from the same catalogue. What separates a mining specification from a hotel specification is the order the questions are asked in — and in four of the six environments below, one constraint overrides that order entirely.
- Radios for a security and guarding operation — what the configuration changes
A guarding operation buys for people who were trained this morning and may not be here next month. That changes the specification before any model is named, and it changes what the fleet actually costs to run.
- Radios inside a warehouse — what the building does to the specification
A warehouse is the one site where adding more building makes coverage worse. Racking, machinery and noise change the specification before the model list is reached, and the shift pattern decides how the fleet is charged.
- Radios for a school or campus — why the roles decide, not the roll count
A school is a site with a public face, a large transient staff population and a calendar that leaves the building empty for weeks. Each of those changes the specification, and none of them is a function of how many pupils there are.
Where to go from here
Buyer notes are written from the catalogue and the published reference pages. They carry no parameter the site cannot evidence, and an unconfirmed value stays unconfirmed here too. BaltiGo is a trading and distribution company supplying Motorola two-way radio hardware into markets worldwide, and does not claim to be a Motorola authorised dealer or official distributor.
Enquiry
Send the configuration, not just the model name
Band, destination and quantity decide whether a quotation is usable in one round or three. Compose the brief and it carries all three.