Industry configurations
How six operating environments specify hardware, and what changes is the priority, not the brand.
Band selection
VHF or UHF — which one works on your site?
The general rule is well established: VHF travels further across open ground, UHF gets into and around structures. Your licence still decides — but the site tells you what to ask for.
VHF and UHF are not better and worse versions of each other. They fail differently. VHF carries further across open ground with fewer obstructions in the way; UHF penetrates and works around buildings and steel, at the cost of reach in the open. The site you are covering therefore narrows the band long before a model is chosen.
What this note does not do
This note explains how the decision is made. It does not quote a coverage distance, a survey result or a band recommendation for a specific site, 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
- Read the site description in the table below and find the closest match.
- Check that band against what you are licensed to use. Where the two disagree, the licence wins.
- Send the site description and the licensed range together — those two fields are what a coverage answer is built from.
Site condition and what it tends to favour
| Site condition | What it tends to favour | What to confirm before ordering |
|---|---|---|
| Open desert, long haul roads, coastal and marine | VHF, where the path is long and mostly unobstructed. | Whether the licensed range is VHF at all, and whether a repeater is cheaper than accepting the coverage limit. |
| Warehouses, racks, steel-framed sheds | UHF. Dense steel and stacked racking is the case UHF handles better. | Aisles the radio must reach, and whether a single site-wide channel plan is realistic. |
| Multi-storey buildings, hotels, hospitals | UHF, with coverage checked floor by floor. | Which floors and back-of-house areas are in scope — a single survey point in a lobby proves nothing. |
| Refineries, process plants, tank farms | Decided by the classification first, not the band. A hazardous-area build narrows the model list before band choice is reached. | The zone classification and the listed build the site authority accepts. |
| Tunnels, basements, plant rooms | Neither band works from outside. Radiating cable or a dedicated in-tunnel system is the real answer. | Whether the project scope includes an installed system, not just handsets. |
| Towers, cranes, high structures | The structure blocks more than the band decides. Antenna mounting matters more than the band label. | Whether a fixed installation is being specified alongside the portables. |
The licence outranks the site
If the site favours a band your authorisation does not cover, the site does not win. The order becomes a coverage problem — more sites, a repeater, or a different channel plan — rather than a reason to buy the wrong band.
What this catalogue records, and what it does not
The catalogue records the frequency band for each identifier as a band list, and where the source document gives numbers, it gives the edges: for example VHF 136-174 MHz, UHF 403-470 MHz, or a 700/800 MHz combination. It does not record measured range, talk distance, floor penetration or floors covered. No supplier can record those from a datasheet, because they are properties of the site, not the radio.
| VHF range | Identifiers |
|---|---|
| 136-174 MHz | 48 |
| 136-162 MHz | 2 |
| 146-174 MHz | 1 |
| UHF range | Identifiers |
|---|---|
| 380-520 MHz | 8 |
| 400-480 MHz | 1 |
| 400-527 MHz | 1 |
| 400-470 MHz | 2 |
| 403-470 MHz | 21 |
| 403-446 MHz | 1 |
| 403-440 MHz | 2 |
| 403-527 MHz | 11 |
| 403-480 MHz | 1 |
Treat the two tables above as a list of what exists to be ordered. Which of them suits your site is the question the table further up is for.
Not covered here
- A range figure in metres or kilometres. Any supplier who quotes one without a survey is quoting a brochure number, not your site.
- Repeater sizing, antenna selection or radiating-cable design.
- A recommendation for a specific site. That needs the site plan and, usually, a walk test.
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.
- Site plan or a marked-up map, if you have one — even a screenshot with the coverage area outlined.
- The structure types inside the coverage area: steel, concrete, below ground, high-rise.
- Whether any fixed installation (repeater, antenna, radiating cable) is already in scope.
Questions this note answers
All else equal, VHF carries further across open ground with fewer obstructions. That "all else equal" does the real work: buildings, steel, terrain and antenna height change the answer far more than the band label does.
Sometimes, on a flat site with few obstructions and a modest area. It stops being true inside steel-framed buildings, below ground or across long distances. Whether a repeater is needed is a survey finding, not a specification you can assume.
It handles dense structures better than VHF as a general principle, but "inside a building" is not one condition. A single-storey warehouse and a basement plant room are different problems with different answers.
No. Frequency is not a quality axis. Audio quality comes from the radio and the programming; coverage comes from the band, the site and the installation.
Where to go from here
Logistics and ports
Yards, terminals and fleet: what the configuration logic looks like for this environment.
Admission and compliance
Frequency authorisation is granted to the operator, not the equipment supplier.
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 Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC, 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.