we are looking to install radios in the work trucks so we dont have to rely on cell phones for communications.
problem is i have been out of the communications game for so long and things have changed so much i dont know where to turn.
looking on internet, i see these:

 

are there any police.fire radio outfitters near you tom, if they can hook up a cruiser,fire truck or ambulance they should be able to hook you up with good gear

 

not many. our town does all communications in house

 

How far do you need to be apart from each other?

These would be reliant on a cellular network to work. I can't tell if you are trying to get away from cell phones because of signal issues or for PTT convenience or some other reason.

Maybe VHF or UHF or unlicensed band radios would be good?

Do you need portable or mobile or both?

 

distance would be up to 150 miles, but usually under 50 miles.
we are looking to get away from phone and into PTT.
mobile is what boss wants, but i am looking at portable because both of us bounce between trucks and machines.

 

Some kind of cellular ones would probably be the right way to go at those distances, as long as there's some coverage.

 

sometimes i wish NEXTEL hadn't gone under their old push to talk system was great ,if anyone today has that ????

 

agreed. the nextel system was great. verizin tried it for a while, but it did not work for them.

 

https://www.verizon.com/business/pro...ush-talk-plus/

 

your link does not work Charlie

 

I had that with one employer a couple of decades ago.

Bebeep!

It was great, unless your colleagues were more casual than your customer would prefer and said something non-professional before checking if it was okay.

 

Worked for me:

 

the kayotoms came in friday afternoon. they work pretty much the same as the old nextels did, only much louder.
only thing i have not figured out is how to program individual users for private conversations.
but then again, i have not gotten into detailed instructions either. i currently have 6 radios, with two in use for the past 3 days.
\gonna dig into programing later then hand out 2 more, and keep 2 in the office until we go back to work full swing

 

Interesting!

Do they say they're able to designate talkgroups?

 

yes, grouups, and individual users.
i just have not figured out how to do it yet...... mainly because the instructions are printed in chinese translated english with way more typos than there should be.