Projects

Radio communications solutions for Logistics and Distribution using Tait Repeaters and Tait Mobile Radio keeps Banks beer flowing.

When you see Banks proclaimed on the side of a rum shop or at the beach you know a delicious cold Banks beer awaits you, delivered via a Tait Radio connected delivery truck supplied by Mobile & Marine Systems – Barbados.

Banks is the award winning beer of choice in Barbados, West Indies.  This is consumed in large quantities by locals and visitors alike.

Mobile and Marine Services was asked to supply a radio communications system the ensured the smooth delivery of the product to over 2,000 hotels, bars, night clubs, supermarkets and small shops across the island.

Banks Breweries delivery drivers are their ambassadors in maintaining the brewery’s market share. More that 50 trucks are used to make the deliveries and it was necessary to maintain radio contact with all the trucks to make sure that every customer had a good supply of Banks.

Some of the routes covered are in  areas where repeater coverage is very poor due to the hills and valleys.  Using one repeater would not give the coverage required.

Mobile and Marine Services installed a 3 site UHF Tait T800II repeater system.  The three sites are linked together to provide seamless coverage across the island.

Each Tait T2015II is programmed with the three channels. The driver switches to the channel which gives the best coverage on his given route.  Due to the location of the repeaters and the coverage of each repeater drivers seldom have to change channels during a day.  Each of the three channels can also be accessed from the delivery bond.

In addition Mobile  and Marine Services installed SELCALL in each vehicle. The base was a Tait T2020, and we made full use of the SELCALL features.

What SELCALL means is individual delivery trucks can be called from the Base. The called device will ring notifying the driver that he is required.  This is particularly useful where the driver is constantly out of the cab. When he returns a ring tone, or a flashing light, will indicate that the base was trying to make contact.  The device can also be used to call the base.  The display on the base will indicate the number of the device calling.

The Tait radio solution that Banks’ use has substantially improved the efficiency and effectiveness of getting Banks beer to where it’s needed, when it’s needed and has helped Banks to increase their bottom line profitability through improved logistics management.

Radio communications solutions for Logistics and Distribution using Tait Repeaters and Tait Mobile Radio keeps Banks beer flowing.

When you see Banks proclaimed on the side of a rum shop or at the beach you know a delicious cold Banks beer awaits you, delivered via a Tait Radio connected delivery truck supplied by Mobile & Marine Systems – Barbados.

Banks is the award winning beer of choice in Barbados, West Indies.  This is consumed in large quantities by locals and visitors alike.

Mobile and Marine Services was asked to supply a radio communications system the ensured the smooth delivery of the product to over 2,000 hotels, bars, night clubs, supermarkets and small shops across the island.

Banks Breweries delivery drivers are their ambassadors in maintaining the brewery’s market share. More that 50 trucks are used to make the deliveries and it was necessary to maintain radio contact with all the trucks to make sure that every customer had a good supply of Banks.

Some of the routes covered are in  areas where repeater coverage is very poor due to the hills and valleys.  Using one repeater would not give the coverage required.

Mobile and Marine Services installed a 3 site UHF Tait T800II repeater system.  The three sites are linked together to provide seamless coverage across the island.

Each Tait T2015II is programmed with the three channels. The driver switches to the channel which gives the best coverage on his given route.  Due to the location of the repeaters and the coverage of each repeater drivers seldom have to change channels during a day.  Each of the three channels can also be accessed from the delivery bond.

In addition Mobile  and Marine Services installed SELCALL in each vehicle. The base was a Tait T2020, and we made full use of the SELCALL features.

What SELCALL means is individual delivery trucks can be called from the Base. The called device will ring notifying the driver that he is required.  This is particularly useful where the driver is constantly out of the cab. When he returns a ring tone, or a flashing light, will indicate that the base was trying to make contact.  The device can also be used to call the base.  The display on the base will indicate the number of the device calling.

The Tait radio solution that Banks’ use has substantially improved the efficiency and effectiveness of getting Banks beer to where it’s needed, when it’s needed and has helped Banks to increase their bottom line profitability through improved logistics management.

Zetron alarm panels and Tait radio solutions allow Chickmont Foods to monitor key processes for their state-of-the-art chicken and hatchery processing facilities.

ChickmontFoodsHatcheryChickmont Foods based in Barbaodos West Indies is the leading integrated poultry business in the Southern Caribbean. Chickmont Foods not only represents a number of highly visible brands, including Montrose Farm Fresh, Montrose Premium, Super Chick and Tropical Eggs, but also operates and manages a hatchery, broiler farms, a layer farm and its own retail outlets.  Chickmont Foods state-of-the-art processing facilities are specifically designed to handle multi-tasking operations and use integrated solutions from Tait Radios and Zetron alarm panels to monitor key processes.

Chickmont Foods is the largest supplier of fresh chicken in Barbados, with an annual turnover over of over 3.5 million birds.  Chickmont holds the distinction of being the only ISO 9001 and HACCP certified processing plant in Barbados. (HACCP -pronounced hass-ip – is a world recognised standard, which stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration and the United States Department of Agriculture have made HACCP a standard that many food companies must follow.)

The fresh chicken produced by Chickmont Foods is free from all hormones and preservatives. Barbadians like their chicken fresh and free from impurities.   Barbadians consume about 25 kg of chicken per person annually. This is understood to be one of the highest per capital consumption figures in the world!

Chickmont Foods delivers day old chicks from their Hatchery, at Lower Estate, to independent farmers across the island.  When they are 6 weeks old they are transported to the processing plant at Balls.  Here they are slaughtered and packaged ready for sale to supermarkets and restaurants across the island.

Mobile and Marine Services keeps the staff of Chickmont foods in constant contact using a mixture of Tait T2015 mobiles in the refrigerated trucks and handhelds carried by the staff.  These communicate via 3 linked Tait T800II repeaters to provide seamless island wide coverage.

The Lower Estate hatchery is unmanned out side of normal working hours.  The management of Chickmont needed a way to monitor these alarms at both the hatchery and the Balls processing Plant.

Mobile and Maine Systems installed a Zetron M1550 Alarm processing panel at each site.

At the Hatchery this monitors a number of critical functions such as the AC mains, water pressure, cooling fans and incubator temperatures.

At the processing Plant critical functions such AC mains, water pressure, temperature of the various freezers, chillers and boilers are all monitored.

The Zetron M1550 Alarm processing panel reports any alarms via telephone and radio.  A compressive call list will call different people depending on the nature of the alarm.

Remote Multi-Channel Marine Base Station for the Barbados Coast Guard using a combination of  Tait T800II and the TM8000 equipment

Her Majesty’s Barbados Ships, Barbados Coast Guard HQ, Fort Willoughby, Barbados, West Indies.

Lord Nelson, Bridgetown, Barbados – erected in 1813, 27 years before London’s Lord Nelson column. Sculpted from bronze by Sir Richard Westmacott, it is considered to be an accurate likeness of the British Admiral.

The Barbados Coast Guard – is the maritime element of the Barbados Defence Force, with responsibility for patrolling Barbados’ territorial waters.  Mobile and Marine Services were asked by the Barbados Coast Guard to design a system to improve their Marine VHF communications range and coverage.

With the coverage of the previous system was limited to approximately 45Km to the west of Barbados which was due to the location of Fort Willoughby, the Coast Guard headquarters in Bridgetown, being located in the south west of Barbados.  There was little coverage to the North, East or South of the island.

Using a combination of  Tait T800II and Tait TM8000 equipment Mobile and Marine Services has been able to provide a cost effective solution to enhance the communication systems of the Barbados Coast Guard.  The radio coverage has now been extended from approximately 45Km to the west of Barbados to a range of approximately 80Km in all directions around Barbados.  In addition to the Marine channels other frequencies in the 150-174MHz band have been provided for secure communications, so enhancing the effectiveness of the Barbados Coast Guard in patrolling Barbados’ territorial waters.

The Tait T800II was a logical choice for this system. These modules can be programmed to operate on several channels which can be selected by the Tait T803 remote control unit.

Using the traditional 4-wire leased lines from Fort Willoughby, the Coast Guard headquarters, to the repeater site was not an option, simply as there were no land lines in its vicinity.   Installing a full duplex radio link we estimated would have increased the cost by five times!

We used two of the very versatile Tait TM8000 series radios to link the base to a remote repeater site.  These radios provide a link for both the channel select tones as well as providing a voice link to ships around Barbados.

At the Coast Guard HQ at Fort Willoughby we used a UHF Tait T8250. Here we interfaced this to a Midian Electronics TRE2 remote tone encoder.  The Midian TRE2 is a simple unit that can send (or generate) the channel select tones to change the channel of the Tait T800II at the repeater site.  The output from the Midian TRE2 is connected to the Tait TM8250 via the Auxiliary Connector on the rear of the radio.

To Select a Marine Channel the appropriate key on the Midian TRE2 is selected and the programmable function key “F4” on the Tait TM8250 is pressed.  This sends the channel select tone to the Repeater site.  Here it is received by a Tait T8110.  A  Tait TMAA01-01 Line Interface Board in the option space of the TM8110 provides a 4 wire interface to pass the channel select tones and voice communication to the Tait T803 channel selector.

The Tait T803 selects the channel of the T800II via the channel select lines.  We have also connected these lines to the external BCD Channel Select lines of the TM8115.  This causes the radio to switch to a channel which corresponds to the selected marine channel.

We programmed each channel of the TM8110 with a different Transmit SELCALL number. The SELCALL parameters have been set to send the SELCALL on the leading edge of the transmission.

This SELCALL is received by the TM8250 at the Coast Guard control room.  Using the address book we linked this received SELCALL to enable the TM8250 to display Marine 06, Marine 12 or which ever channel was selected.  This enables the operator to confirm that the required channel was selected.

The radio coverage now extends to a range of approximately 80Km in all directions around Barbados.  In addition to the Marine channels other frequencies in the 150-174MHz band are used to provide secure communication.

Another VHF TM8200 installed on the Coast Guard ship HMBS Trident gives access to Marine Channels as well as other channels for secure communication.   The built in voice inversion scrambler further enhances the level of security for their operations.

Due to the versatility of the Tait T800II and the Tait TM8000 equipment Mobile and Marine Services has been able to provide a cost effective solution to enhance the communication systems of the Barbados Coast Guard, extending marine radio coverage from just 45Km west of Barbados, to approximately 80Km in all directions around Barbados.  In addition to the Marine channels other frequencies in the 150-174MHz band have also been provided for secure communications, so enhancing the effectiveness of the Barbados Coast Guard in patrolling Barbados’ territorial waters.

Mobile and Marine Services is a green company and has been using renewable energy to power its repeater stations since 1981.

MMS Wind And Solar Cell  Power Highland with the recent conflicts in areas that produce the majority of the world’s oil, and the effects that the emission of Carbon Dioxide has on global warming there is a pressing need for a source of cheap and clean energy.

Mobile and Marine Services started generating electricity using Photovoltaic and wind in 1981.   These were used as a necessity as our first repeater site at Highland was not close to the electrical grid.  It started with just 2 panels producing 90 Watts and today we have expanded this to produce over 900 watts at peak.

When we erected our Grand View repeater site we installed solar panels as a supplement to the mains electricity.   This investment has resulted in huge benefits since it was commissioned 25 years ago. During a sunny day the panels produce 90% of the power required to operate the site, even with a trunk system running. On cloudy days and at night the power is drawn from the grid.

We also have 2 other sites, where mains power is available but have opted to power these solely by Photovoltaic power.

Our Portable repeater trailer is also powered by solar panels which allow us to set–up without having to look for a source of mains electricity.

Long before it became fashionable for companies to look at the possibilities of cutting their energy costs Mobile and Marine Systems Ltd have been designing and installing highly effective solar powered and wind powered systems to support our business by making saving on our energy costs.