Zcom radios

[Caldair]

Anyone here have any experience with Zcom radios?

My theatre doesn't have any comms at the moment (apart from when I bring in mine). It's a small improv theatre with no need for cueing or coordinating changes or anything like that, but they'd like some comms for "doors closed, ready backstage, go show" and "lights to bar, audience coming out for the interval, run for your lives" and that sort of thing. We've been offered these at a nice price (they can't afford any Kenwood/Icom/Motorola/Clear-Coms that I know of). I'll probably get to try them out to see if they work through the walls and with PA and a full foyer, but... I've never heard of them, they have quite a generic name and I can't find any trace of them online, which lights up all my "Chinese product of dubious quality" alarms. Any thoughts?

[fliggygeek]

As far as Chinese uhf gear goes, a company called Wouxun has a pretty high reputation for budget gear amongst the off road community. I have some as well as my mates here and its pretty reasonable . Price I paid for a 5w handheld unit was about $80AUD

[paulears]

Most of the cheap radios available are actually rather good - like many of the Chinese/Hong Kong products - the only real drawback is durability. If you have an Icom or Motorola, then dropping it results in scratches - dropping one of the cheaper radios sometimes breaks the plastic - often battery slides, or around the belt clips, where the depth of material is less. Performance wise - the 2 or 5Watt output means the range will be fine - much further than you need. The low power setting is normally plenty. What you must do is turn on the CTCSS lock and set tone squelch - because lots of kit in your venue can produce local RF rubbish - tills, computers etc - using the tone squelch will keep them silent until a proper transmission is detected.

 

As you're in Norway, the licensing rules are probably different - although every country should now be licensing using EU rules. Here, for example, the license is in fact pretty cheap - similar to radio mics, and is based around a number of shared channels, which you protect to a degree with the CTCSS system. Equipment should be type approved - which these Chinese radios are NOT. This means that you really shouldn't use them - however, our current license here in the UK asks no questions about what make radios you use. The chances are the radio would actually pass the spec - but testing for EU type approval is expensive. Here in the UK, this means that using these kind of radios is not approved - although they can be imported and sold legally. I suspect you probably have the same rules. Oddly,many venues take out the license, and use non-type approved radios in ignorance. I guess you need to just work out your compliance level. With a license, I suspect many organisations would simply say they have a license, and the authorities would see a license in place - and be happy. There are no regular checks now. When I took out my PMR license in around 1980, I had a visit from the Radio Investigation people before it was granted. This doesn't happen nowadays.

 

I have Icom and Motorola equipment, but also have half a dozen of these Chinese types for backup, and they all function fine - two have insulation tape stopping the battery packs falling off, and one has no light in the display - all due to being dropped. It does occur to me that a case would have solved this one!