Security and guarding
The same turnover problem, in a contract guarding operation.
Education
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.
Schools are usually specified from the wrong number. The roll count describes how many people are on site; it says nothing about how many posts have to be reachable at once, how many buildings those posts are spread across, or who should be able to hear a given conversation. This note works from the roles instead, because the roles are what a radio fleet is actually matched against.
What this note does not do
This note explains how the decision is made. It does not quote a a fleet quantity, a coverage result or advice on a school's own policies, 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 posts, not people. Reception, the site team and a duty rota are posts; the roll count is not.
- Establish how many separate buildings or detached sites have to be reachable from each other.
- Send the post list, the building layout and the term pattern. Quantity follows from the first, coverage from the second, charging from the third.
The first constraint is that part of the site is public
A school is unusual in that its busiest radio user works in front of an audience. Reception, the front gate and the arrival and departure period put the device in view of parents, visitors and pupils, which makes discretion a requirement rather than a preference — and it changes the accessory decision, because audio that is discreet is usually audio that is delivered privately to one person.
Who can hear a channel is part of the specification
On a shared channel everyone holding that channel hears everything said on it. That is a design property, not a setting to be worked around later, and it means the question "who should be able to hear this?" has to be answered before the channel plan is written. How a school resolves that for itself — what is said over a radio and what is not — is the school's own policy, and this site does not advise on it.
Confirm the channel plan against your own safeguarding policy before the units are ordered.By post: what the structure produces
| Post | What the job does to a radio | What to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| Reception and front of house | Fixed position, high visitor traffic, device visible to the public, interrupt-driven. | Whether audio has to be private, and whether a fixed supply is available at the desk. |
| Leadership and administration | Moves between offices and teaching areas, needs to be reachable rather than to reach. | Whether the role needs to reach individuals or a group, which decides whether a shared channel is enough. |
| Site and security team | Covers the whole estate including detached buildings and perimeter routes. | Whether the route leaves the buildings, which turns this into a coverage question rather than a device one. |
| Facilities and maintenance | Works in plant rooms, on roofs and across separate structures. | How many distinct structures have to be reachable together, and whether any of them is underground or heavily shielded. |
| Catering and support staff | Fixed or semi-fixed positions, working to a service timetable. | Whether these posts need their own channel or can share one, given how much of their traffic is routine. |
| Transport, sports and events | Occasional rather than daily use, away from the main site, in fluctuating numbers. | Whether these roles share units with another post or need their own, since a shared unit is a unit that gets lost. |
| Temporary and supply staff | Trained this morning, sometimes for a single day. | Whether the control layout is simple enough to be briefed in minutes, which is a specification constraint rather than a training one. |
The school year decides the charging arrangement
Few sites have a use pattern as pronounced as a school: intense during term, near-empty during holidays, with staff who may not be on site in between. A radio fleet has to be stored and charged through the empty periods and be ready on the first morning of term, which is an operating decision that has to be made alongside the specification rather than after it.
What the term pattern forces you to settle
- Where units live out of term, and who is responsible for them being charged when term restarts.
- Whether a unit is issued to a post or to a person, since staff move between posts far more often than posts move.
- How units are logged in and out at the end of a school day, when much of the traffic is routine rather than urgent.
- Whether the fleet is sized for term-time concurrent posts or for the annual roster — those two give different numbers.
A school is usually several buildings, not one
Independent structures, a sports hall, playing fields, a separate reception building and sometimes a second site are all common. Where the buildings are far apart, the coverage question stops being about the radio and becomes about how the sites are linked — and that decision sits with the site rather than with the catalogue, because it depends on what already exists between the buildings.
Not covered here
- Fleet quantity, or a ratio of radios to pupils, staff or floor area.
- Coverage across a campus, a playing field or between separate buildings.
- What a school should or should not say over a radio. That is the school's own safeguarding policy.
- Whether a particular site will accept a particular build, and what its own rules require.
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.
- The concurrent post list — who has to be reachable at the same time on a normal day.
- The buildings: how many, whether any are detached, and how far apart the extremes are.
- The term pattern, and where units will be stored and charged out of term.
- Whether any traffic has to be kept to one recipient rather than a shared channel.
Questions this note answers
This site does not publish a ratio, because the right number follows from concurrent posts and separate buildings rather than from the roll. Two schools of very different sizes can need the same fleet if their posts match, and a small school on two sites can need more than a large one on one.
Not automatically. Whether digital is worth it turns on what the school needs beyond plain voice — individual calls, private audio, text, or logging — rather than on the size of the site. Where those are not required, the question is a cost decision rather than a technical one.
That is established by a survey rather than assumed from the number of buildings. A repeater is the usual answer where structures are separated or heavily shielded, but the decision follows from a measurement of your site, which is why coverage is listed above as something this note does not answer.
By making the build easy to brief rather than by repeating training. Where a post changes hands frequently, the control layout is a specification constraint, and it is worth deciding whether units are issued to posts or to people before the fleet is fixed.
Where to go from here
Configuration by operating environment
How six environments rank the same requirements differently.
Buying into a new market
The administrative layer around a first order.
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.