Relm scores state forestry service order, ships ESAS to Texas
Relm Wireless, West. Melbourne, FL, has received $400,000 worth of orders for its BK Radio G-Series portable radios from the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF). Delivery of the equipment is scheduled for March 2002.
The BK Radio G-Series portable radios will increase the equipment base of the ODF. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department and Parks and Recreation Department also use ODF’s VHF highband network of 54 repeaters, and together the agencies use about 3,000 subscriber units. Some of the new units will replace older radios in ODF’s current supply. These radios will be deployed in forests throughout Oregon.
ODF started as a BK Radio customer in 1986. ODF’s communications manager, Clare Wren, said that the BK radios were chosen for their interoperability with BK radios used by the U.S. Forest Service.
“Our department wants firefighters who arrive at a fire where ODF radios are programmed one way and U.S. Forest Service radios are programmed another, to be able to connect the radios with a cable to clone them to the same frequency programming quickly. From an operations standpoint, that is an excellent way of doing business,” Wren said.
Thom Morrow, Relm’s senior vice president of sales and marketing, commented, “BK Radio equipment has effectively served forestry organizations in Oregon and throughout the country for over 15 years. We are committed to maintaining a high level of performance, reliability and value to this critical sector of the public safety market.”
In another transaction, Relm has shipped Uniden enhanced subaudible signaling (ESAS) repeater systems, one of which is outfitted with voice-over-Internet (VoIP) capability, to dealers in central Texas. Revenues from these four shipments exceed $700,000.
The ESAS technology, which was developed by Uniden America, provides wide-area repeater networking that offers customers lower infrastructure costs and digital-like features in their Logic Trunked Radio (LTR) systems. The rights to this technology were part of Relm’s acquisition of the Uniden Private Radio Communication product line.
Relm commenced limited international ESAS shipments in 2001. The sale to the Texas dealers represents Relm’s first domestic ESAS shipment. ESAS has a worldwide installed base of more than 10,000 channels operating with a diverse range of customers using ESAS protocols and different frequency bands.
Until now, multiple ESAS sites have been connected using microwave technology or telephone lines. VoIP capability provides a means of networking multiple ESAS sites that is less expensive than microwave and faster than telephone lines.