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January 28, 2014All around us, the wireless world is going digital. But organizations have questions about this breakthrough technology. To provide them with answers, BearCom and Motorola Solutions teamed up to create our Analog-to-Digital Migration Guide: "Five Reasons to Migrate to Digital Two-Way Radios." "A 'smart' revolution is transforming two-way radios," the guide begins. "Digital technology is opening the door to a host of useful web-based applications for two-way radios, even as it enhances capacity, coverage, audio quality, and battery life." Available as a free download from BearCom.com, the guide details how digital two-way radios offer additional functionality, greater efficiency, enhanced coverage, improved audio quality, and
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January 21, 2014Those of you who follow my adventures know that I can fly to wherever there's a communications emergency. Regular folks need a plane, and what do private pilots need? They need two-way radios, of course! A recent story on TodaysWirelessWorld.com explained how many private pilots wouldn't consider taking to the air without a backup radio. "Imagine what happens if an airplane's primary radio fails in flight," the story says. "You're thousands of feet in the air at the controls of an expensive aircraft with no ability to monitor weather and emergency channels or communicate with control towers, ground crews, and other pilots. Getting down safely suddenly becomes more theoretical than a sure thing." The story goes on to review some key considerations for a pilot using a handheld aircraft radio as a backup:
- Mind your power supply. "While rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries usually
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3M Peltor Accessories Analog Apps BearCom BridgeWave Call Boxes Cambium Networks Cell Phones David Clark Digital Eventide Extranets Facebook Firetide Icom America IMPACT Radio Accessories IP Kent Huffman LDV LinkedIn Mesh Networks Mobile Broadband Mobile Command Centers Motorola MOTOTRBO NeoTerra Systems NOC OTTO Panasonic Point-to-Point Bridges Preventive Maintenance Pryme Push-to-Talk Pyramid Rent Repairs Social Media Sonetics Sony Sprint Nextel TABLETmedia Today's Wireless World TurboVUi Twisted Pair Twitter Two-Way Radio Rentals Two-Way Radios Ubiquiti Verizon Vertex Standard Video Surveillance Walkie-Talkies Wireless WLAN YouTube Analog Technologies Motorola Solutions Two-Way Radio AccessoriesJanuary 07, 2014Some companies publish catalogs filled with little more than pretty pictures and glowing product descriptions. Not BearCom. Our 2014 Wireless Products, Services & Solutions Guide, which is headed to customers early next week, is filled with detailed information about BearCom's capabilities and scope, as well as updates on the latest innovations in wireless technology. "In this issue, we explore how digital technology is transforming two-way radios," said BearCom's Chief Marketing Officer, Kent Huffman, who oversees the annual project. "That section includes information on the benefits of switching to digital and how backward-compatible equipment makes an analog-to-digital migration smoother." Huffman added, "The guide also serves as a reminder of how BearCom's strong partner relationships and our 26 branch offices nationwide keep us positioned to offer wireless communications solutions of
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BearCom's 2013 Marked by New Products, Operations Center, Maintenance Plans, and the Motorola CP200d
December 31, 2013This first day of the new year seems like the perfect time to look back at all that happened at BearCom during 2013, a year that brought new products and solutions, an award for our BC130 two-way radio, a revamped online magazine, and a potential game changer from Motorola Solutions. It was just last month that we announced the opening of the BearCom Network Operations Center (NOC), which can monitor customers' Motorola MOTOTRBO systems around the clock. It provides system diagnostics, real-time visibility, and proactive response to any issues that arise. With the NOC, BearCom can offer our Constant Service Presence to detect any issues, evaluate problems, and even dispatch technicians. "Using the NOC allows us to collect metrics on such -
December 24, 2013Even superheroes need helpers, and today I want to congratulate one who responded beautifully to a communications emergency in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska. His name is John Benevento, and thanks to "Benny," the clock tower carillon in Golden Heart Plaza plays Christmas music instead of two-way radio traffic from the city's public safety agencies. According to the Fairbanks News-Miner, the carillon designed to fill the downtown square with music was beset by problems almost since the local Rotary Club put it up in 1990. Those issues, several of which were familiar to Alaskans, kept the tower quiet most of the time. Electrical conduits froze. Then an earthquake snapped the underground cable that ran to the tower from the nearby Gold Exchange restaurant. The cable was replaced by a microwave signal from another downtown building, but interference came from an unlikely source: the remote starting systems Alaskans use to warm up their frozen vehicles. Benevento told the News-Miner
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December 10, 2013With help from our partner Motorola Solutions, wireless LAN is going down under. In this case, I don't mean Australia, but underground into the subway system in Toronto, Canada. There, ruggedized wireless access points and controllers using Motorola's Wireless Next Generation technology were chosen by BAI Canada to give Wi-Fi connectivity to Toronto's subway riders. TCConnect, as it's being called, was unveiled this week at two of the city's busiest subway stations, and it eventually will cover all 65 that are in place or planned. That's good news for 1.7 million people who use the system daily. They get the ability to use their wireless devices to access the Internet, social media, and e-mail. They also can get access to real-time alerts, arrival and departure information, and
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December 03, 2013Hiring happens on a mind-boggling scale at this time of year. Retailers will add up to 780,000 seasonal workers to handle the crush of holiday consumers. Many will have little experience, limited product knowledge, and no familiarity with store operations. How will they get answers? Through a two-way radio. Radios are being used in an increasing number of retail settings because they provide the one-to-many communications that result in quick responses to queries. One person sends the same message to the entire staff in a process that is vastly superior to one-to-one, phone-based communications. The more questions an employee has, the more he or she is helped by the answers. Retail employee groups as a whole become more efficient from these communications, and business owners find new efficiencies. Those savings inevitably benefit customers. Radio communications benefit retailers and consumers in a variety of ways:
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November 26, 2013Last year at this time, we told you how wireless technology saved the first Thanksgiving, improving communications and making for a festive celebration for the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians in 1621. Historians are just now learning about the struggles the new settlers faced in their second year in the New World, and how they were solved by digital two-way radios. Around turkey-laden tables across the nation, many families each year recall the now-familiar tale of the first Thanksgiving. They remember the leadership of Governor William Bradford, who had moved quickly to get two-way radios from BearCom. They will recall how he handed out the Motorola XPR6550, Motorola/BearCom BC130, and Motorola CP200 to the colonists based on their specific communications needs. As every child learns in school, Bradford used his Motorola MOTOTRBO radio to reach Squanto, who was in turn able to locate other Wampanoag tribesmen not yet
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November 20, 2013Our fleet of rental radios from Motorola Solutions—we've got 20,000 of them—has taught us a thing or two about preventive maintenance. All that experience and expertise helped us develop the BearCom Preventive Maintenance Plans, which officially launched this week. "A communications system is only as strong as its weakest link," BearCom President & CEO Jerry Denham said in a news release announcing the new offering. "With a Preventive Maintenance Plan from BearCom, our customers can avoid outages and unexpected repair costs, while ensuring their equipment is operating at peak efficiency. We are very excited to offer this service." A BearCom Preventive Maintenance Plan can be developed for any combination of portable radios, mobile radios, and repeaters, whether they are analog
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November 05, 2013The latest news on the machine-to-machine (M2M) industry points to even faster growth in M2M and identifies the business sectors that stand to be most impacted. Strategy Analytics says M2M will grow from $45 billion in annual revenue in 2013 to an amazing $242 billion in 2022. The report's author, Andrew Brown, was quoted by M2M World News as saying, "Healthcare, consumer electronics, utilities, and vehicles are areas that will see major revenue growth, through the driving out of inefficiency in existing processes, as well as the creation of new service opportunities. The growth in providers of regulatory compliant NOCs (network operation centers), investment from industrial giants like GE, and growth in the number of 'big data,' system