We are please to announce that IntercomsOnline.com is now a Motorola Authorized Business Two-Way Radio Reseller. We currently offer Motorola’s most popular business two-way radios, the new ultra-small CLP series, the small CLS series, and the DTR digital series. Click on the link above for more information.

Fast and effective communication is needed in restaurants to provide the best customer experience, but restaurant staff don’t want to wear bulky two-way radios. They need radios that are comfortable to wear, unobtrusive in appearance, and easy to use. The Motorola CLP1040 radios fit that need.

The CLP1040′s sleek design won’t detract from staff uniforms. In fact, the optional magnet-mount accessory enables staff to locate the radio anywhere on their uniform.

While the CLP is the smallest and lightest business-class two way radio on the market, it’s still durable and has ample volume to overcome noisy kitchen environments. Wait staff won’t have to yell in their microphones and kitchen staff will still be able to hear them. Restaurant guests will experience exceptional service without even be aware of all the intricacies behind that service.

The four channel Motorola CLP1040 and the one channel CLP1010 are the best restaurant two-way radios available.

 

The Motorola CLP1040 and CLP1010 are the smallest and lightest two-way radios for the hotel and hospitality industry. These radios enable hotel staff with rapid communication to ensure guests have smooth arrivals and departures, excellent service during their stay, and fast access to transportation.

Unlike other bulky radios, hotel staff won’t mind wearing one of these radios. They weigh less than 2.5 ounces and measure at approximately 3.5 x 2 x 0.75 inches small. They come with a belt clip, but there is also a magnet mount option that enables staff to clip a radio anywhere on their clothing. A magnet goes inside the clothing and the radio attaches over top it.

The sleek styling promotes the hotel’s image, while the military specification standard ensures the radio is durable enough for tough, everyday use.

If you’re looking for a two way radio for your employees to use in a retail store, one of the best options available is the Motorola CLP1040. This ultra compact radio is the smallest and lightest radio available. The CLP1040 doesn’t have a built-in speaker so it requires users to wear a headset, which is included with the radio. Other headset options are available too.

One of the nicest features of the radio besides its small size, is the magnetic mount option. It allows you to clip the radio anywhere on your clothing you want. There is a belt clip that comes with the radio, but for those who don’t want to wear it on their belt, or they don’t even have a belt, the magnetic clip works very well.

There are four channels on the Motorola CLP 1040 and voice prompts and color-changing LEDs tell you which channel you are on. There’s a good review of this radio here: Motorola CLP1040

The Motorola CLP1040 is the smallest business-class two-way radio on the market and it fits nicely in a wide variety of applications, even outside the hospitality and retail industries that it is designed for.

Size

The greatest advantage of the CLP1040 is its small size. It measures at just 3.5 x 2 x 0.75 inches with a weight of 2.38 ounces using the standard battery and 3 ounces with a high capacity battery. It will truly fit in the palm of your hand. One of the biggest complaints to 2-way radio usage is that users don’t like wearing a larger or heavier radio. With this radio, users will barely know it’s there.

Along with its tiny size Motorola also came up with another smart design element. All other two-way radios have a belt clip for carrying the radio. This may be fine if you’re wearing a belt. However, one of Motorola’s target markets was the retail industry. If you think about the type of clothing being worn by employees in a high-fashion woman’s clothing store, there aren’t a lot of belts. So Motorola came up with a magnet-mount option for the CLP series. The wearer simply places one side of the magnet mount inside the clothing, and then place the radio directly on top of that. Since the radio is sleek and light, it will stick almost anywhere. Of course they do have a belt-clip option available too.

Power Output

Since the CLP only has one watt of power, the range it will transmit will not be as far as 2-way radios with higher wattage. Plus it has a built-in antenna so that may not give the you the range of a longer two way radio antenna. But for most applications, one watt will be more than sufficient. The good part of this lower wattage is that battery life is longer.

If you don’t need to transmit very far there is a half-watt setting too. You probably want to use this setting if it works well for you because that limits how far your radios transmit. That means people farther away can’t hear your conversations and since these radios are not secure, that may be to your benefit.

UHF Frequencies

The CLP1040 uses business-band UHF frequencies between 450-470 MHz to transmit and receive. The benefit of UHF is that there are a greater number of channels available, and the CLP gives you a total of 90 available frequencies to choose from. UHF is good for use inside buildings, which is the primary target market for this radio.

Motorola claims a unit-to-unit range of up to 160,000 square feet and 12 floors of building coverage. Of course you can use a repeater to increase range, but that will add extra expense and complexity to your installation.

FCC License

The UHF frequencies these radios use do require an FCC license to operate on them. At least that’s the law. In reality most people don’t get a license since the FCC makes the process too complex. If you don’t get a license, just know that someone who does get a license could complain to the FCC that you are transmitting on their frequency and you will have to stop using it. But given that there are 90 available frequencies for the Motorola CLP1040, you could just find one that doesn’t seem to be used and use that instead. If you can use the half-watt setting on the radio, that will reduce chances of interfering with other radios as well.

Military Specification Standards

In an effort to achieve standardization objectives for purchases of products used by the military and other government organizations, the U.S. Department of Defense created standards that these products must meet. You will see these standards called military standard, “MIL-STD”, or “MIL-SPEC.” These standards ensure products meet certain requirements, commonality, reliability, compatibility, and similar defense-related objectives.

The Department of Defense also has standards for two-way radios and radios that meet this standard must meet levels for such criteria as vibration, rain, salt air, sand/dust, shock (dropping), humidity, temperature as well as other factors.

The CLP1040 has been tested MIL-STD-810, which indicates it should work in some pretty tough environments, like a restaurant kitchen for instance.

Headsets Required

One thing you need to keep in mind about the CLP 1040 is that there is no built in speaker so you will be required to use a Motorola headset. You can’t use headsets by other manufacturers since accessory jack is custom made for this radio. Fortunately Motorola has some good options, but you’ll have to pay Motorola prices for them. With that you also get a quality headset that will last a little longer than some cheap headset. The good thing about the headsets is that they screw into the CLP so they won’t pull out if the radio is bumped or dropped.

Battery Life

The Motorola CLP uses long-lasting lithium-ion batteries. The standard battery that comes with the CLP1040 has a 9 hour battery life, which should be sufficient for most business days. This life is calculated based on 5% transmit, 5% receive, and 90% standby. In situations where users communicate much more frequently than that, the high-capacity battery with a 14 hour life could be used. Changing batteries is easy so spare batteries could easily be swapped out as well.

Usability

The CLP1040 has been designed for ease of use so personnel will not need a lot of training to operate them. To transmit a user simply presses and holds the large, easy to find Push-to-Talk (PTT) button on the front of the radio, or some of the headsets have an inline PTT.

One of the challenges with a radio this small is finding a way to activate the features it has, especially when there is no display for a user to select from a menu of options. Motorola solved this problem through audio voice prompts.  Motorola calls this Voice Assisted Operation. When users press the menu button the first time, they hear the prompt “Channel” and pressing the +/- keys scrolls through the channels. Pressing the Menu button again scrolls through the other features: Monitor Mode, Channel Scan, and Call Tone. When the user lands on anyone of these, the +/- keys are used to scroll through the options or turn a feature on or off.

Smart Status Glow

There is a light ring around the PTT button that is used to indicate radio status. It is used to indicate the active channel, radio transmit & receive, scan, and battery status.

Channel Status and Scan

The light ring lights one of the following colors depending on the channel it is on. In channel scan mode, the status indicator changes to the color of the channel it locks in on:

Channel 1: Red

Channel 2: Green

Channel 3: Orange

Channel 4: Blue

Battery Status

With a short press and release of the Power/Battery button, the Smart Status Glow and Voice Assisted Operation features will give you the battery status:

Battery Level High (70 –100%): Green

Battery Level Medium (30 – 70%): Orange

Battery Level Low (10 – 30%): Red

Battery Level Critical (0 – 10%): Blinking Red

Transmit and Receive

The light ring will stay on solid when transmitting or receiving. Otherwise the light ring goes on and off in Standby mode depending on how it is programmed to operate.

Channel Scan

One feature that can be helpful for users who need more than one channel is Channel Scan. The CLP1040 has 4 channels and in channel scan mode, when the radio detects activity, it stops scanning and locks in on the active channel. This allows the user to talk and listen to the person transmitting without changing channels. This feature is especially nice for managers who may need to monitor multiple groups of team members.

Call Tone

The Call Tone feature enables users to send a tone to other radios. What this tone signifies is for you to define. One use for these could be to set up a “silent alarm” emergency assist request. If a team member is with a customer who they deem a security risk for some reason, the team member can send a tone instead of having to voice their concern while they are standing with the customer. Then another team member can respond to the tone as appropriate.

You will need a CLP Programming Cable and the Customer Programming Software (CPS) to activate this feature. You have to purchase the programming cable, but the CPS software is a free download from Motorola’s website. There are four call tones available, but only one can be activated on a radio at a time.

Monitor Mode

Monitor mode may not be what you think it is. It doesn’t allow you to listen in to a radio like a baby monitor. It is the traditional two-way radio feature that lets you listen in to the activity on a particular channel. It essentially turns of the squelch control so if there is no activity, you will hear static until you turn monitor mode off, or until there is radio activity. On traditional 2-way radios this feature is used to listen for activity before you transmit so you don’t transmit over someone whose signal may not be strong enough to break your squelch control.

Customer Programming Software

The Customer Programming Software is required to initially set the way the radio operates and to make any programming changes along the way. You should purchase at least one CLP Programming Cable (works on USB) and then download the free programming software from Motorola’s website.

The software is available in English, Latin American Spanish, and Canadian French.

Radio Cloning

After you get one radio programmed the way you like it, there is also a cloning kit available to copy settings from one radio to another without having to use the CPS software (it will work for programming the new radios too). The benefit of the cloning cable is that adding additional radios later is a simple task of hooking the cloning cable between two of the charging units that come with the radios and using the built in cloning capability to copy the settings. You will be required to purchase the CLP Series Cloning Cable Kit to do this. Up to six radios could be cloned at the same time if you also purchase the Multi-Unit Charger (MUC) Kit.

Summary

The Motorola CLP1040 is an excellent choice for applications where you need a small, light-weight two-way radio that is easy to use and comfortable to wear, and your team members don’t mind wearing a headset all day. As long as you don’t need to transmit great distances, or you are willing to put in a repeater system, this radio should work well for you. This radio is available for sale at www.IntercomsOnline.com.

When you see a wireless call box in a parking lot there is often a blue strobe light mounted on top. The purpose of the strobe light is to draw attention to the callbox when someone presses the call button on it. Then security personnel or other nearby people can see which wireless callbox called for help.

Hooking up a strobe light to the callbox is a fairly simple process. The strobe light has two pairs (4 wires) of wires coming off of it.  Two of the wires are for power. There is an  AC version that has a standard electrical plug and a DC version has just two wires for positive and negative. The other two wires are for the contact closure. These are the wires that connect to the relay on the callbox.

Then it’s a matter of programming the callbox to trigger the relay as desired.  Most instances using a strobe generally have the callbox set for “relay on when active”.  In this application, the relay is latched as long as the callbox is powered up and working.  The strobe will either stay latched until the unit times out after a period of inactivity, or it can be programmed to be turned off with an “off code” from another radio.

Staffing a guard booth, guard shack, or gate house with security personnel can be very costly. Even if you only pay minimum wage, every hour that goes by with a person sitting in the gate house costs you $7.25. Since that person has to remain in the guard shack, they can’t be productively doing anything else either. Also, when they take mandatory breaks, then the gate is left unmanned, which causes frustration to anyone who arrives at the gate during those periods.

The solution is to close down the guard booth and replace it with a long-range wireless outdoor intercom. With it, you do not need dedicated personnel to sit at the gate. You can use handheld two-way radios or base station intercoms placed in one or several locations. With the handheld radio, monitoring personnel can be mobile so they can still be productive at doing something else while attending to visitors.

Not only can staff talk to visitors, they can also press a button on their radio to unlock the gate remotely to let visitors in. There is no need for a trip to the gate.

With these intercoms, a range of a couple of miles can be achieved in some conditions so they should work for most applications.

On a golf course property the restaurant and bar at the club house are usually significant sources of revenue. The more golfers can be moved through, the more money can be made. One way to do that is to install an intercom system on the 9th hole that communicates back to the kitchen or bar. When golfers reach the 9th hole they simply press the button to speak with someone who can take their order.  When they get to the clubhouse, their order is waiting for them

The problem with this solution has been the huge expense and mess created by trenching to run the wire. Also, the length of the wire needed is often prohibitive since most intercom systems have a maximum wire length of around 1500 feet.

The most attractive solution is to install a wireless callbox.  A wireless callbox is essentially a two-way radio in a vandal and weather resistant housing. It can communicate with multiple base station intercoms or handheld two way radios back in the kitchen, bar, or wherever you have personnel who can take orders. One of the additional benefits of wireless is that order takers can be completely mobile so they don’t have to be tied to one location.

This system also encourages players to move faster through the final 9 holes since they know they have food waiting for them. That enables you to make more revenue from green fees as well. Also since many golfers are higher income earners who consider their time to be extremely valuable, providing faster service to them means they are more likely to take advantage of this new time-saving service.

To increase revenue even more, you could add callboxes in different locations around the course to take drink orders that you then deliver to the golfers during play.  You could set callboxes on different channels so you know which one is calling in. Each channel represents a different location on the course. Since you want the golfers to keep moving, you ask them the shirt colors of everyone in their party so you can track them down, and you also tell them watch for the drink cart so they can flag it down.

Another advantage of the system is that it is capable of receiving NOAA weather alerts so you’ll automatically know when severe weather is approaching.  Since these callboxes are part of a complete long-range communication system, you could also use your handheld radio or base station intercoms to broadcast emergency messages to a Wireless PA system so you can warn golfers to take cover. You can use these callboxes for other emergency use as well.  Placing them in strategic locations around the course as a defibrillator deployment system could save someone’s life.

The callbox can be fully solar powered so there is no need for trenching at all and a solution can be installed in a few hours. The range on these callboxes is up to a mile or even more with the use of an external antenna.

This golf course 9th-hole order system is available at www.IntercomsOnline.com

At IntercomsOnline.com we quite frequently get requests from marinas who want to add an intercom system to their boat docks where the boats pull up to gas pumps for fueling.  Of course a wired intercom is usually out of the question due to the complexities of running the wire to the dock, and given the harsh environment, the wires can go bad quickly. This is why we propose a weatherproof wireless call box intercom.

A wireless call box can transmit and receive voice communication over long distances. Range is usually measured in miles, not feet so distance is seldom a limitation.  You can place a fixed base station intercom in the store, or you can have someone carrying a mobile two-way radio, or both, so someone is always available to take calls from the boat dock.

When a boater pulls up to the dock, they press the button on the callbox and they can talk to you and you to them. The instructions are printed right on the callbox so the boater knows what to do. These wireless callboxes are available in non-licensed frequencies so an FCC license is not required to operate them.

A boat dock gas pump intercom system will ensure your customers don’t have to wait around for someone to show up to help them pump gas.

Australian spectrum allocation arrangements are, at their broadest level, embodied in one statutory instrument known as the Australian Radiofrequency Spectrum Plan (ARSP). The Spectrum Plan divides the Australian radio frequency spectrum into a number of frequency bands and specifies the general purposes for which the bands may be used.

In the United States, business band radios operate in UHF frequencies of 450 – 470 MHz and VHF frequencies of 150 – 162 MHz. Both 450 – 470 MHz and 150 – 162 MHz are usable in Australia for various communications purposes which are listed in the ARSP (the Spectrum Plan). A link to the ARSP can be found at this link: http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/radcomm/frequency_planning/spectrum_plan/aust_rf_spectrum_plan.doc.

To use these radios you would require a license to operate a radiocommunications transmitter in Australia including in the 150 MHz – 162 MHz and 450 MHz – 4 70 MHz sections of the spectrum. Under the Radiocommunications Act 1992 all radiocommunications transmitters in Australia must be licensed. There are 3 types of radiocommunications licenses in Australia, they are Class licenses, Apparatus licenses and Spectrum licenses. More information on these 3 types of licensing can be found at here: http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_481  Radiocommunications licensing.