ANALOG vs DIGITAL TWO-WAY RADIOS

Analog radios have been around for donkey’s years and been proven to be a reliable source for communications.

However, as technology continues to advance; the capabilities of Digital radio have surpassed their older counterpart.

I’m regularly asked “Do I choose Analog or Digital?”
The short answer if you’re wanting to futureproof your fleet is to choose Digital.
Keep in mind that most Digital radio have the facility to be programmed in Analog until you’re ready to transition your fleet across to offer a smooth analog to digital migration.

Digital Radios offer many benefits vs. Analog radios. Here’s a few:

1. Better Voice Quality – Most digital radios come with noise cancelling capabilities perfect for working if you work in a high-noise environment. Digital radios have clearer transmissions and your colleagues have a much better chance at hearing what was said.
2. Stronger Coverage - Digital performs better even at the far edges of coverage. Built-in error correction helps eliminate the static, background noise, and voice distortion that can occur with analog radios as you reach the limits of coverage.
3. Longer Battery Life

Why you might want to stick to the ol faithful Analog Radio:

Pricing:

Digital tend to be a bit pricier as mentioned before they are technically an Analog and Digital Radio, a 2 in 1 radio.

Mission Critical:

Digital Radio have a slight delay of about half a second, this plays a tone to notify the user when its safe to speak. Analog has zero delay in transmission; in industries that make use of Tower Cranes and Mobile Cranes Analog still seems to remain king from a safety point of view. Missing parts of transmission is too risky, while transporting heavy cargo. However, I can’t see it being too long before Digital finds a way to fix this small issue.

Personal Preference

While it’s a bit of an odd one I’ve had some radio users that just don’t like the sound of Digital as clear as it is. After working with the famous analog radio psshhht sound, after each transmission, you get used to it and users get used to the sound of analog.

Radios are a worker’s tool similarly to the saying “if it ain’t broken don’t fix it” workers in some industries are heavily reliant on their radio for safety purposes, sometimes adding more features can end up bringing more confusion, which you don’t want for communication.