Taxi Driver Online

Well we could start with the cost.

And please don't repeat Cordic's next to nothing a week con.

_________________
IDFIMH

[quote="Yorkie
Yorkie has told you all what system he is using, and the few problems, merely that radioman never takes notice

and radioman I am the company owner

wake up man.[/quote]

Hmmm so I have never taken notice of any of the problems you have had then Yorkie? Well please accept my appologies for that.

Now what problems are you having lets discuse them.

regards
RadioMan

you are going to persue this arnt you radioman?

well I have no problems now but setting up was a nightmare.

we looked at 12 systems, so we contacted the top 6, none of whom were interested so as we went down the list we got one interested, believe it it was Diplomat U.K

SO they sent us to look at the system in Sutton in Ashfield, who we were told was thier Northern agents.

it fact they were no such thing they were the system developers.

we were persuaded to buy the system, costing some £7,000 and add data heads later.

well the data heads were diplomats responsibility, and they couldnt supply despite promises to do so.

they offered cheap offers and loads of bargains, but no data heads, cut a long story short we read in thier accounts when they went tits up that they had "no commercial value" straight from the horses mouth.

our entire system of Midas was changed at no cost to our company with Mercury, who used palm top computers for sending data.

few teathing problems now everything is unkidorie.

and we have no contact with Diplomat.

who cannot keep thier promises.

Radio Man Hhhuuummmm????


That's what Lynda said when I asked her who she thought he was.

Youv'e been rumbled pal

Stick all your drivers on the same network most now offer free bundled calls to the same network, orange offer this for other networks also.

If the drivers are on the right tarriffs and networks also they can get free calls to ther mobiles and landlines.

Why bother with radio anymore, unless of course you are really local and complete skinflints.

Still I am not in the taxi business so what do I know

I am just run a humble chauffeur business

Regards

Eric

question for yorkie
are you using the pda system from mercuary?

how many cars do you have?

my company is thinking about going over to pda data dispatch and
we are trying to find a good deal

I dont think they have mastered the abacas yet let alone a PDA.

Mr Eric,

What the hell are you on about with regards me being rumbled? Please would you care too explain what your on about.

As for using mobile phones etc, they are ok for your type of business but a basic radio system running from someones office for a small fleet on voice is ideal and a fixed cost.

There are various systems that companies can use these days to contact their drivers, each company should look at what is best for them.

regards
RadioMan

So the main problems you have had with your old system was the supplier. I look at various sytems and see whats wrong with them (not the acutal supplier) and try and figure out how to improve things, maybe it might be radio coverage from the base station site, problems with car installation or even issues with phone systems etc.

A lot of the radio issues that people have with data also happen with voice.

I am glad that you are now happy with your current supplier and using the PDAs. I wonder if you still have voice radios fitted in the cars? I was in London last week and the company servicing the hotel I was staying in had PDAs and also voice radios etc. This seems like a good way of cutting down on mobile phone costs if the driver is within radio coverage of your base station.

I also have a friend who has 8 vehicles on using the Cordic system and he is pleased with that for this airport operations whilst the main fleet is on full data using radios etc.

regards
RadioMan

Radio man is it ok if I can call you by your real name John?

now John, the problem with radios here is that we are stuck between 3 valleys, Ryburn Valley, Calder Valley, and Lower Valley, in some places we can recieve signals from Manchester Sheffield and Wakefield, but not from base 2 miles away.

even a great engineer like you would find it difficult, though of course I am prepared to be prooved wrong.

how much would it cost me to get you here for a day?

I would consider it an investment, maybe you could fix it wright.

yes we have radios though it sounds like Norman Collier and the Darlecks
our radio expert died 2 years ago hes sadly missed.

We had that problem Geoff a few years ago in Sutton, we had a repeater fitted on a remote mast and whala clear as anything.

Hi Yorkie,

You can call me John, not a problem at all. I can easily do some investigations and radio coverage predictions for you (FOC of course!)

Radio coverage is one of the most important thing to offices but its something that most people dont look at in detail. Even down to the type of cable you use on your antenna system can make a big differance.

For instance if your running 100ft of the standard thick black cable (rg213 urm67) on a high band system then you loose 50% of your incoming signal on that cable as well as 50% of outgoing transmit power. Both these problems can be solved.

I look forward to looking into things for you.

regards
John

Whats the best cable to use John??

Hi Nidge,

The type of cable to use depends on various things:

1. What frequency your using.
2. Length of cable run.

If you are on the standard type 166Mhz (Base tx) and 172Mhz (mobile tx) then for a 100ft run of cable I would use Andrews LDF250. It costs a bit more but it will certainly make an improvement in your system.

If your running around 50ft then I would use Westflex 103 which is very good and not that exspensive.

On remote sites I use LDF450 cable which is a thick as your thumb.

I have always said that the majority of companies forget about their antenna system and radio dealers dont like to push this fact and just put up the first thing they can get.

I have put in four sites (voice and data) where they use the standard vertical antenna you normaly see and just below it a beam antenna to point in the direction that they are having the most problems with. Inbetween the two antennas I install a "Y" harness which allows both antennas to be connected to the one base station.

The vertical antenna gives you 360degree coverage whilst the beam gives you more gain on transmit and receive into trouble spots.

Other things that have to be considered is the do you need a remote radio site and if so what site, radio dealers in the past tend to put you on their own local site but that does not mean that its the best site for your operation.

There are 1000s of radio sites too choose from and the combined cost of site rental and BT landline (if required but there are ways of getting round this) is on average 4000 pounds per year which is not a lot if its going to give you the operational coverage you require.

Anyway, there is ALWAYS a solution. Its just a matter of people actually giving a damm and understanding what to do in order to resolve the issues.

regards
John

Cheers John, on our Radios we are running off a 200ft pole, I don't know the make of the cable but if we go 5 miles away from the pole the reception is breaking up, Mansfield is in a dip this is the reason for 200ft pole.

Hi Nidge

Well if you dont have the right cable then your looking at the following:

Cable type : RG213 (URM67)
Length: 200ft
Power Output from base: 10watts

Loss on cable: 5.61dB
Power output from antenna after cable loss: 2.47w

Thats a loss of near enough 75% in your cable for both tx and rx signals.
No doubt the radio dealer has adjusted the base station in order to compensate for the power loss in cable (if 10watts on licence then he would have set the base at 37watts (but this also depends on antenna type at top of the mast).

Basically you might as well put a magmount out of the window and use it. Get me the address of the office and I will do a radio coverage report for you Nidge.