Tip 31: Make Sure Your Batteries Are Fully Charged
On event day, it’s essentially that you start with a fully charged battery. Prior to your event, you or your radio communications company should make sure that all radios have a fully charged battery.
In general, batteries can last from 8 hours to about 16 hours depending on how much you are using the radio.
We’ve seen them go in as little as 4 hours during heavy use. We recommend that all date codes are within 2 years and batteries maintain no less than 80% of their original 100% capacity when fully charged.
Tip 32: Request Extra Batteries
Things can get a little hectic on event day and it’s good to have some extra batteries on hand. For more active users, we recommend that you carry an extra battery with you. If you have a central location, it’s worth having rack chargers with batteries charging in case someone needs to swing by and pick some up.
Tip 33: Right Radio, Right Channel
Radio distribution can be a chaotic time, especially if you do not have an organized system with tracking. In the past, we’ve seen people get the wrong radio and not be on the right channel, and also don’t know what channel they should be on.
To help prevent this problem, assign a radio or group of radios to a specific person or group (ex. parking, medical, etc.). Make sure that the radios going out to this group are on the right channel and zone if applicable.
Tip 34: Stay In Your Zone
Unless you’re an active, experienced radio user that needs to be on channels in multiple zones, we recommend not changing zones unless it’s absolutely necessary. Often cases, this can cause some confusion when the user doesn’t know how to get back to the channel in the zone they need to be on.
Multiple zones are usually for larger events that need an excess amount of channels or serious coverage. Smaller events usually have one zone.