Radio Links Communications Ltd were delighted to hand over a new technology, digital trunked radio system, to The NEC Group at their ICC and Arena Birmingham venues, both in central Birmingham. The ICC is one of the largest Conferencing and Exhibition centres in the UK, while The Arena Birmingham is one of the country’s leading live entertainment venues. The ICC is also home to the famous Symphony Hall, a world class, 2000 seat venue, which hosts over 200 concerts a year. Outside of these venues the busy Mall provides shopping and dining opportunities for the many visitors.

As the two venues required approximately 20 different radio user groups, we recommended, supplied and installed Motorola’s Linked Capacity Plus trunk radio system, which provided full site radio coverage of both venues, while allowing all radio users to share a common infrastructure and the associated pool of readily available radio channels. This state-of-the-art, digital, two-way radio communications system allows staff at the ICC to communicate with their colleagues at the NIA, seamlessly, as if they were in the same building.

At the ICC the Motorola DP4800 handportable radios are used by Security, Event Management and all staff that deal with the general public attending any one of the ten large conference halls, with a capacity for up to 8000 delegates.

The NEC Group IT Project Manager commented “The ICC went out to market to select an appropriate DMR radio solution and provider. Radio Links stood out from the competition with their technical product knowledgeable and straight-talking approach to delivering a practical and reliable radio solution using this new technology. Their sales and technical staff worked in partnership with the NEC Group’s formed project team, and they were able to follow our controls and adopt our planning activities with no problems. Their ability to work to our terms and timescales resulted in a very satisfactory and predictable outcome; transition over to a better radio system, with improved radio coverage; clearer reception and a system that is simpler for us to operate”.

The ICC Technical Event Service Manager, Mr Paul Dipple, the primary contact for all radio users on site at the ICC and NIA, commented on the installation “The implementation of our new digital radio system ran very smoothly. This was down to all the pre-planning between ourselves and Radio Links, so that on the day we all knew what was happening and when. When the switch over happened from analogue to digital it all happened seamlessly. Everything worked right first time”.

Regarding the overall operation of the new radio system Paul added “On using the new digital system all of the “Dead Areas” we had with the older analogue radios have disappeared and we now get good radio reception everywhere. All in all I am very happy with the system and we have a very good working relationship with Radio Links”.