20 rewarding years in two-way

Sep 1, 2002 12:00 PM, Manuel A. Alvarez Sr., President, Beam Radio, Miami

The two-way radio communications business has been rewarding.

I am not only talking in a monetary sense, but also in interaction with people and community involvement.

My company was the first Spanish-speaking two-way radio business in the Miami area. We grew with the community, facing the same challenges and risks as everyone. I have to say that in all these years, we have not lost a single penny in accounts receivable, nor have we had to send any accounts to collection.

Many years ago, we installed our first community repeater with a tone panel that gave an individual CTCSS tone per company sharing the repeater. The intention of CTCSS is so a company using the repeater only hears its own communications, not everyone else's. But in one of our periodic checks, we found that the tone panel was not working.

We replaced the tone panel. The next day we received a complaint from a group of users, saying that something was wrong with the repeater. It seems that they had liked the single tone for everyone because they could talk with each other when their own base or mobiles were not available. In fact, all the users were doing dispatch for each other. They even had regular picnics. My clients were a happy group. Today they are the most successful companies of Miami-Dade County.

What is really rewarding is walking the streets of Miami or going to meetings and people mentioning: “Hi, Manny. Remember me? You sold me my first radio.” It makes me feel as though I was part of his success.

True, our business has changed in the last 10 years. We are in the “orbis digitalis” era. The small entrepreneur can no longer compete in this global economy. We have to adapt and find niches that still can use our services. But we have something to offer, and it is our personal care for our customers. No one will remember the guy who sold him the first digital radio.

Alvarez migrated in 1960 to the United States from Cuba, where he had worked in broadcasting and telecommunications. He founded Beam Radio in 1976.