H-BOSS
RT4U & HSE4U TWO WAY RADIOS

Phone: 0275895313 Email:info@RT4U.nz


Welcome, H-BOSS provides two-way radio systems, rental radio systems and operates a repeater network in Hawkes Bay.

ABOUT H-BOSS

Jack from H-BOSS has been in the two-way radio industry (and periphery industries) since 1975. With this length of experience he has been involved in the following, from design, to engineering to implementation:

Now based in Hawke Bay, Jack supports clients across New Zealand supplying customer owned radio systems and rental radio systems.

ABOUT H-BOSS RADIO SYSTEMS

Radio Systems can be all sizes from a 2-radio simplex system to a multi-user/multi-high-site-repeater system.
H-BOSS has engineered all types and has decades of experience in providing the right solution for clients.
Currently H-BOSS has some rental systems available for long-term hire, typically 6-months or more, at very affordable pricing.
Renting two-way radios makes sense for many situations including leased farms, dynamic staff levels, uncertainty in longevity of market, short term and season work loads, and keeping assets levels down.
Typical clients include:
The table below shows pricing to access a Hastings CBD based repeater.

HASTINGS CBD BASED TWO-WAY RADIO REPEATER ACCESS
ITEM
 ACCESS TYPE
 PTT VOICE ONLY
 PTT VOICE & GPS TRACKING
 PTT VOICE, GPS TRACKING, & GEO-FENCING
 PTT VOICE, GPS TRACKING, GEO-FENCING, & EVENT MONITORING
1
 User
(Analog Channel)
 $15/Mnth/Radio +GST
$400/Mnth/Fleet +GST
 $18/Mnth/Radio +GST
$500/Mnth/Fleet +GST
 N/A N/A
2
 User & Monthly Reports
(Digital Channel)
 N/A
 $22/Mnth/Radio +GST
$700/Mnth/Fleet +GST		 $25/Mnth/Radio +GST
$600/Mnth/Fleet +GST		 $30/Mnth/Radio +GST
$700/Mnth/Fleet +GST
3
 User & Admin
(Digital Channel)
 N/A
 $30/Mnth/Radio +GST
$700/Mnth/Fleet +GST		 $30/Mnth/Radio +GST
$700/Mnth/Fleet +GST		 $30/Mnth/Radio +GST
$700/Mnth/Fleet +GST
4
 PTT = Press To Talk, GPS Tracking requires GPS equipped NXDN radio. Geo-Fencing occurs on the server. Event monitoring typically requires external interface from event sensor and NXDN radio.
5
 Purchase Prices: Hand Held Radio Analog $960 +GST. Hand Held Radio Digital $1,400 +GST.
6
 Purchase Prices (excludes installation): Mobile Radio Analog $960 +GST.  Mobile Radio Digital $1,400 +GST. Base Radio Analog $1,500 +GST. Base Radio Digital $2,000 +GST.
7
 Item 1 GPS Tracking accommodates occasional enquiries regarding location of a user.
Monthly reports are provided within Item 2.
User generated reports are within Item 3, which requires client computer with internet access.


The table below shows the pricing for medium term hiring of radio systems (repeater and radios).

TWO-WAY RADIO SYSTEM - MEDIUM TERM RENTAL
ITEM
 RADIO SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
QUANT of H/H
RADIOS
 MONTHLY RENTAL
Ex GST
 MINIMUM
RENTAL PERIOD
 TYPICAL SETUP
Ex GST
1
 ANALOG SIMPLEX RADIO SYSTEM (Radios only)
 6
 $360
 6-Months
 $0
2
 P25 SIMPLEX RADIO SYSTEM (Radios only)
 6
 $460
 6-Month
 $0
3
 ANALOG REPEATER RADIO SYSTEM (Mains powered repeater at your site and radios)
 6
 $860
 6-Month
 $1500
4
 P25 & NXDN REPEATER RADIO SYSTEM  (Mains powered repeater at your site and radios) 6
 $1000
 6-Month
 $2000
5
 ANALOG REPEATER RADIO SYSTEM (Solar powered repeater at your site and radios) 6
 $960
 6-Month
 $2500
6
 P25 & NXDN REPEATER RADIO SYSTEM (Solar powered repeater at your site and radios) 6
 $1100
 6-Month
 $3500
7
 Mobile and base radios are also also available. Price on application.
8
 ANALOG Systems offer the best voice clarity in non-challenging audio situations.
9 P25 & NXDN Systems offer the best voice clarity in challenging audio situations with lots of machine made noise. These P25 & NXDN systems offer better voice quality than DMR systems.
10
 SIMPLEX Systems offer limited range which is generally defined by what area can be seen by the transmitting radio (plus 5% further).  A good primer video can be found here.
11
 REPEATER Systems offer much further range which is generally defined by what area the can be seen from the repeater location (plus 5% further). A good primer video can be found here.
12
 Setting up repeater systems requires me to know the exact location (lat/long), access options (drive on preferred), coverage required (farm map or aerial photograph of site) & hirer's details.


Email:rentals@RT4U.nz     Google search Rental Radios Hawkes Bay, Walkie Talkie Hire Hawkes Bay, Two Way Radio Rentals Hawkes Bay
Radio Hire Hawkes Bay, or Radio Systems New Zealand    TOP of PAGE

KEY INGREDIENTS TO A RESILIENT TWO-WAY RADIO SYSTEM


From previous posts below we know that off-grid non-networked high sites are desirable but let's summarise some key design parameters such as location, reserve, recovery, profile, pricing, redundancy, usable for BAU, and unattended dependability.

Location.
- Drive on access. Drive on access is very desirable as helicopter access is not only primarily expensive, the HSE requirements for a good Plan B (the survival plan) are also expensive.
- Lower altitude. High altitude sites suffer much more in a storm, than low altitude sites. Low sites also benefit with less chance of interference from other regions.
- Low channel count. Less eggs in one basket, less chance of on-site EMI causing interference between services, and less chance of damage due to antenna parts/ice falling onto other antennae or photo-voltaic panels.
- Reasonable coverage. The coverage does not have to be 80% of the region as geo-spatial redundancy mentioned below covers this.

Reserve. This is reserve battery power. A resilient site is engineered for off grid and battery capacity is included in the engineering considerations.
Regardless of the off grid charging method, a minimum of 5-days working capacity in the batteries is required. This reserve capacity may need to be greater if photo-voltaic cells (solar panels) are used and the sunshine hours for the location are low during the event you need resilience for.  A volcanic ash cloud may linger or be continuous for more than 5-days. In such an event there could well be no helicopters flying.
This reserve capacity must be based on the service/channel worst current drain scenario.
Telemetry and voice channels should have totally separate power supplies, from photo-voltaic to solar regulator to battery bank.
Lead acid battery banks should only be using the top 50% of their capacity.
Whilst there is a push by many for lithium based battery banks, I do not see that as appropriate solution for land based repeater sites.

Recovery. A resilient off-grid photo-voltaic powered (using solar panels) should have adequate wattage and voltage to facilitate fully recharging the battery bank from 50% discharge in 5-hours of clear sunshine.
The adequate photo-voltaic voltage ensures that even on overcast days there is a good trickle charge going into the battery bank. The batteries should not be discharging on overcast days; black clouds do not allow adequate light for charging.

Profile. As many yachties and wind turbine engineers know, the wind speed increases as the height above sea level or ground level increases.
A heavily multiplexed site requires a tall mast of maybe 20-40-metres height to accommodate the large number of antennae for the large number of services onsite.
A small site with 3 channels only needs a mast approximately 6-metres tall.
A 6-metre mast needs much less engineering than a 20-metre mast to survive gale force winds.

Price. Combining the above factors it is easy to see that a small site has much less engineering, setup, and ongoing maintenance costs than a large site. For airtime re-sellers there is economy of scale with a large site but absolute reliability is not guaranteed.
For organisations that want absolute reliability the low pricing in all aspects of a small site has a major advantage, which is covered in the next bullet point.

Redundancy. Geo-spatial redundancy is a key aspect of absolute reliability. Whilst a single high site may provide 80-90% coverage for a region, three smaller sites may do similar and there would still be budget for adding another two or three smaller sites to provide both the coverage and the absolute reliability due to the geo-spacial redundancy they offer. The loss of 2/5 sites should not overtly impact the coverage nor needed Erlang capacity.

Usable for BAU. Familiarity of use of a resilient communications system is paramount and must be part of the culture of an organisation, thus directed by management. The design team must ensure there are minimum barriers to including the resilient communications system into the everyday toolbox for BAU (business as usual). Consultation is paramount here. An ambulance at the bottom of the cliff is useless with people who know how to use it.

Unattended Reliability. Multiple low profile sites with geo-spatial redundancy ensures continuous service when really needed, without the need to fix the communications network at the same time as trying to save lives and property.

A Stand Alone Low Profile Site
A Heavily Multiplexed Site


WHAT MAKES A RESILIENT COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM


Without toooo much intro (yes, that was intentional) I will explain some relevant bullet points.
Quickly though we have the Who, the Why, and the What.
The Who: Jack set up H-BOSS in 2014 and his networks kept on working during the 2016 Storm (think snow, no power and Havelock water problem) and Cyclone Gabrielle. Jack's decades long career has been around resilient networks for HSE.
The Why: Jack feels for those that expect big networks to provide resilient systems for tough times, they have not in the past and will not in the future. It is stupid to expect these things to change as the networks are driven primarily by the need for maximum allowable profit. A2Z from out of the region is not selling you access to his system for your benefit, it is to maximise the profit of his business, masked as a win-win.
The What is below

1) Fit For Purpose. A couple of tins with some string between them will work as a 1 Erlang communications system without any external support but hardly fit for most purposes today. Trimming to basic needs within an organisation at a local level we want voice and emails. External to the organisation we often need more such as external gateways that can accommodate video conferencing and large file transfer plus the to make and receive phone and email conversations from both a predefined list and an open undefined list. Fit for purpose also means your system must work for you locally when the shite hits the fan, and NO government agency nor large network can be depended on to have a working communications system during nor immediately after a disaster.

2) Proven And Constantly Used and Tested. Taking the basic needs mentioned in the above bullet point and using a resilient network for this local internal "business as usual" ensures that the users are both familiar with its operation and can identify outages, thus maintenance is pro-actively undertaken minimising outages. Testing the resilience of such a system can be as simple as turning off the power the first Tuesday of every month for as long as you would want the system to keep running during a disaster. Your "resilient" communications system should be free of repairs and maintenance needs for 3-months following a disaster otherwise diversion of essential workers/equipment from other areas is required.

3) Simple and Stand Alone. All systems dependent on networked utilities have much increased risk of failure when our environment is stressed from pandemics to natural disasters. Availability and accessibility of skilled maintenance staff and operational staff are compromised in the range of scenarios encountered from pandemics to natural disasters. Simple systems can be maintained with lesser skill sets. Stand-alone systems are independent of networked utilities so suffer zero impact when these fail. The systems themselves must NOT be dependent on their own network even, so this precludes a networked trunked radio system as should the intersite linking fail, there is no simple means for users on one site to communicate with those on another site.

4) Redundancy. The consideration of Murphy's Law is key to why simple systems are more resilient but for the same reasoning there must be Geo-spatial redundancy in the "Simple Stand Alone" systems because although all the eggs in one basket maybe someone's view of efficiency, it does NOT cut the mustard when resilience is paramount.

Some examples to back up these four bullet points:
- June 2012 Review of Civil Defence Emergency Management Response to the 22 February Christchurch Earthquake "... flooding and earthquake ... result in communications being disrupted. Thus, the management of the Response needs to be local."
- The 2016 weather bomb (yes, that same one mentioned above) proved the June 2012 review made no difference in Hawkes Bay.
- A decade later we had Cyclone Gabrielle, and a Telecommunications Forum report was scathing of the big networks. A broken crank shaft on a standby generator at one big key high site and a fuel delivery problem for the standby generator at the regions other big key high site. Both requiring helicopters to effect work rounds or repairs. The standby generators that did work required fuel to flown up, by helicopter.
- Reports, reviews and recommendations make zero difference to how big networks and local government cater to local needs in a disaster or even to mitigate a disaster, think Wairoa River bar.

A little bit more of the "What". If you want a resilient network, be it for your business, your school (yes, Principals and Boards of Trustees are PCBU), your field staff, your remote workers, your factory, your farm, or even your local government, get a system that will stand up to a harsh independent Haz-Op review or sure as there will be another severe weather event, earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption or pandemic, your communications network will fail and I suspect Work Safe will be prosecuting after the next event.

IMPROVING PROFIT MARGINS

Savvy businesses know improved communications efficiency improves profitability.
During the Global Financial Crisis, sales of communications equipment increased significantly (I was pleasantly surprised) often freeing up staff thus facilitating greater efficiencies.
For you now, if you are in any of the arenas below, two-way radios allow better logistics, operations and break down efficiencies.
Some typical scenarios include:
-Regular and irregular checks on what staff are currently doing; their responses are delivered with the simple press of the PTT button and then they are back on task.
-Determining who is closest to an unexpected situation and thus best able to quickly provide assistance.
-Diverting an existing route for a slightly off route client's needs.
This improved efficiency is often NOT the reason why two-way radios are initially procured however greater efficiency soon becomes evident.
Two-way radios are often initially sourced for HSE and off grid communications such as pedestrian work, convoys and construction sites.

H-BOSS has decades of experience supplying Two-Way Radio Systems and Solutions.
As the Harapaki Wind Farm construction phase draws to a close, H-BOSS supplied infrastructure and subscriber terminal equipment (repeaters, handheld two-way radios) are now coming off rental contract and looking for new projects and opportunities.
With the above in mind, this is a good opportunity for Hospitality, Health and Education Campuses, Contractors, Site Projects, Emergency Services, Security, Volunteer Groups, Dispersed Field Teams, Sports Event Organisers, Transport Operators, Festivals, Concerts, Rallies, Convoys, Seasonal Operations, Packinghouses, Factories, Museums, Passenger Service and Tourism Operators, Rafting Companies, Horse Trekking, Vineyards, Orchards, Farmers and Miners.

H-BOSS offers good rates and resilient systems.