Fleet sizing and channel planning
The yards, terminals and road fleet side of the same operation.
Warehousing
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.
Most sites get easier to cover as they get more open. A warehouse does the opposite: the structure that makes it efficient — racking, mezzanines, steel-framed extensions — is the same structure that blocks a radio signal, so a building twice the size can have less usable range than the yard outside it. This note is about the inside of a distribution building. Fleet sizing for a yard, a terminal or a road fleet is a separate question and is covered in the logistics note.
What this note does not do
This note explains how the decision is made. It does not quote a a coverage result for a specific building, a fleet quantity or a noise figure, 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
- Establish whether the radios have to work inside, outside, or across the boundary between them. That single answer decides the most.
- Then decide what the radio has to be heard over. Noise changes more specifications than distance does.
- Send the building description, the shift pattern and the role split. Quantity and coverage follow from those, not from floor area.
The boundary between inside and outside is the first decision
A warehouse usually has two populations that are treated as one: people who stay inside the building, and people who move between the building, the yard and a vehicle. Their requirements diverge. Inside, the constraint is the structure and the noise. Outside, it is distance and the route. A single build chosen for both will be wrong for one of them, and the split is decided by the operating pattern rather than by the headcount.
Coverage inside a racked building is a survey question, not a catalogue one
Search the public guides in this market and most of them will give you a range figure in metres or floors. This site will not, because the same radio covers a different distance in an empty bay and in an aisle of full pallet racking, and the difference is a property of your building rather than of the hardware. A range quoted to you without a survey of your site is a number you cannot act on — and one you would have to defend if the coverage turns out to be short.
Where coverage decides the order, ask for it to be established per building rather than taken from a general figure.Noise is a specification, not a preference
A warehouse is loud in a way an office is not: powered handling equipment, conveyor systems, roller doors and alarms. That changes the accessory decision from cosmetic to structural — a headset is chosen because the operator could not otherwise hear, not because it looks professional. It also changes what "hands-free" has to mean, since the operator may be holding, lifting or driving.
| Post | What the job does to a radio | What to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| Goods-in and goods-out | Works at the boundary, so the radio has to hold inside and outside the doors, frequently with vehicles alongside. | Whether the role sits with the inside or the outside population, and whether a vehicle is the working position. |
| Pickers and put-away | Moves constantly through racking, both hands occupied, ambient noise high. | Whether audio is delivered by headset, and whether the control layout can be operated blind. |
| Powered handling equipment | An operator seated or standing on equipment, in noise, mobile through the building. | Whether the unit is carried on the operator or installed on the machine, and how it is powered. |
| Supervision and floor control | Traffic that has to be directed, so it must be heard first time rather than repeated. | Whether the role needs its own channel or talkgroup rather than sharing one with the floor. |
| Maintenance and engineering | Works across the whole building including plant rooms and roof areas. | Whether the route leaves the building envelope, which turns this into a coverage question. |
| Gatehouse and yard interface | Fixed position handling arrivals, with vehicles queuing outside. | Whether the role belongs to the noise-free population and can use a different build. |
The shift pattern decides the charging arrangement, not the battery
A warehouse is often the clearest case of an operation that runs longer than a working day. What that changes is not the energy item on its own — it is where charging happens, who owns it, and whether a unit is handed over between shifts or charged between them. Those are operating decisions that get made before a specification can be written.
What to settle about charging before specifying anything
- Whether units are handed over person to person at shift change, or returned and re-issued.
- Where charging points sit — a bay edge, a supervisor desk, a plant room — and whether that position exists on every shift.
- Whether the fleet is sized for concurrent positions or for the roster, since those give different numbers.
- Whether spare energy items are held at the building or come from a central store, which changes how many are needed.
Where the building needs more than plain voice
A licensed feature is not a delivered feature
Where a capability such as individual call, text, location or a recording function is sold as a licensable feature, the radio in the box may not have it enabled. Confirm the entitlement on the quotation line rather than from the family name, and confirm which party is expected to hold it.
Confirm the capability requirement in writing before the ordering code is fixed.Not covered here
- Warehouse fleet size, headcount ratios or a recommended spare percentage.
- Coverage inside a specific building, aisle or mezzanine.
- Noise figures for any building or any item of equipment.
- Whether a particular site will accept a particular build, and what its own safety 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 building description — approximate extent, racking, mezzanines, and whether there are separate structures.
- Which roles work inside, which outside, and which cross the boundary.
- The shift pattern, and where units are charged and handed over.
- The noise environment, and whether audio has to be delivered by headset.
Questions this note answers
It changes what the signal has to pass through, and steel racking loaded with stock passes far less of it than an empty aisle. That is why this note treats coverage as a survey question. The building is the variable, so the same hardware answers differently in two warehouses of the same size.
Only if coverage does not hold, and that is established by a survey rather than by floor area. A repeater is the usual answer where a building has separate structures or a large racked area, but it is a decision that follows from a measurement, not a default.
Sometimes, and it is worth testing against the role table above rather than assuming it. The roles that differ most are the ones working in high noise on equipment and the ones working outside the building, because the first needs the audio solution and the second needs the range.
Where to go from here
Portables
Recorded band, channel capacity and ingress protection for each identifier.
Checking a battery part number
How to check an energy item against a handset before ordering it.
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.