Peak PTT Blog

Educators face more challenges today than they have in a long time when. One of the major challenges is effective communication. Oddly enough, in a world where mobile phones proliferate, in times of emergency, mobile phones face serious communication handicaps.

This is why many K-12 school systems are considering two-way radio communications for staff instead of relying on mobile phones for communication. These highly useful tools facilitate communication in all the following situations and more.

Reporting Playground Injuries and Illnesses with Nursing Staff

Injuries and illnesses are commonplace in schools today. From playground and gymnasium accidents to students taking ill in instances, it is sometimes necessary to contact the nurse quickly to apprise him or her of the situation so appropriate measures can be taken. Two-way radios allow communication in in an instant, so students can receive prompt attention when needed.

Managing Assemblies and Events on Campus

When there are a lot of people around, things can get chaotic. Two-way radios help teachers, security staff, and others in the K-12 school system communicate before, during, and after assemblies and other events, like:

• Band Concerts
• Choral Performances
• Plays and Musicals
• Football games
• Graduation
• Pep Rallies
• Homecoming Activities
• School Dances

Whether these events take place during traditional school hours or at odd hours throughout the evening, it is essential to have proper communication throughout these events.

Maintaining Order and Discipline

Not only do two-way radios help to improve discipline on all grade levels, but it is also instrumental in maintaining order during:

• Fire drills
• Tornado drills
• Active shooter drills

Providing staff with two-way radios means that staff can quickly communicate disciplinary problems or students who may be missing during various safety drills, so the appropriate staff can locate those students to verify their safety.

Communicating Important Information for School Bus or Parent Pickup Lines

The after school bus pickup process can be sheer chaos at times. Two-way radio communication allows school staff to introduce some order to what could be chaos. By communicating which school buses have arrived to pick up students and making sure the right students are in line to be picked up, push to talk radios for school buses shine.

In addition, having one-touch communication that is DOT compliant, helps eliminate the dangers of cellphones and distracted driving, while keeping drivers informed of emergency notifications, important safety information, and more.

Handling Emergencies and Having Location Tracking

Two-way radios are even equipped with panic or emergency buttons, so teachers can notify the proper people quickly and easily if an emergency arises. The added benefit is that they are equipped with GPS location tracking, providing the exact location where the signal is coming from.

With communication being such a major factor in school safety and security, the more K-12 schools that adopt this vital communication resource, the better.

Peak PTT Radios for K-12 School Systems

To learn more about PTT technology for your K-12 school system, call us here at Peak PTT at 1-855-600-6161 or contact us via email at info@peakptt.com or our online form.

Managing a golf course is a lot of work. There are many moving parts that must work together perfectly to ensure that every one of your guests has an enjoyable golfing experience. After all, you want your golfers to come back to play a round or two again and again.

Push to talk (PTT) for golf course management communication can help you manage your golf course more efficiently than ever before.

These are just a few of the great ways PTT can help with golf course management.

Facilitates Communication With Your Staff

One of the biggest benefits of push to talk communication is that it enables you to communicate with staff in groups, as a whole, or with individuals wherever they are located on your grounds throughout your golf course.

Members of your staff that can use push to talk radios include any or all of the following:

• Pro-shop staff
• Golf pros
• Greenskeepers
• Maintenance staff
• Irrigation staff
• Caddies
• Timekeepers
• Gift shop staff
• Restaurant staff
• 19th hole staff
• Event staff
• Parking staff
• Golf cart attendants
• Water buffalo refilling staff

 

Since most golf courses cover a lot of ground, 150 acres on average for an 18-hole course,  according to Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), PTT 4G coverage can be hugely advantageous over other forms of communication that may have more limited ranges. Push to talk systems leverage existing cellular networks, wifi networks, and the internet enabling you to communicate over wide coverage areas.

Allows You to Manage Events More Efficiently

Each event your golf course holds is an important opportunity to bring notoriety and exposure to your golf course. Push to talk communication helps you coordinate with various staff members throughout the event to make sure things are going smoothly.

This includes people who are handling beverage carts, security, parking, and more. It also facilitates communications with officials, registration attendants, and specialized staff brought in to handle the event to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that all guests and participants have an enjoyable experience.

Makes it Possible to Create Organization Wide Announcements

Whether you need to spread the word quickly about weather fronts moving through the area, so they can notify players of risks of lightning, or you need to get the word out about security issues or player emergencies, push to talk allows you to transmit important news with the press of a single button. PTT radios also have a one-touch panic button, which is extremely useful in the event of a medical or security emergency.

This improves safety, security, and response times to emergencies. Combine that with the GPS location capabilities of Peak PTT equipment and you are able to direct the proper emergency responders to the exact location of emergencies even on the extremely large, wide open spaces, associated with golf courses.

Contact Peak PTT today to learn more about the equipment and services we offer and how they can help you manage your golf course even more effectively. Call us at 1-855-600-6161 or email us at info@peakptt.com.

If you’re a business that provides company-provided cellphones to employees, you could be losing money due to cell phone abuse.

Here’s a statistic to know: A recent OfficeTeam survey reported about in Fortune magazine discovered that office employees spend an average of 56 minutes each day using cell phones at work for activities that have nothing to do with work. That’s almost one hour a day!

In fact, you might be losing money, not only in higher than necessary cellphone bills, but also in lost productivity.

Here’s why.

Employees who have company provided cellphones may be doing any of the following on company time:

1. Texting and talking. With friends, family, and significant others.
2. Surfing internet sites.  Like iFunny and other time-sucking websites costing you extra bandwidth and wasted man hours.
3. Interacting on social media. Like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
4. Playing games on their phone. Pokemon Go, Candy Crush, PUBG Mobile, Angry Birds, HQ Trivia. You get the picture.
5. Breaking phones with frequent drops or accidents on the job. These phones are not only expensive to replace, but also costly to activate.
6. Leaving jobsites. To go home, run errands, exercise — you name it.
7. Not answering. How many times have you called an employee just to get their voicemail?
8. Shopping online via their mobile phone. A Washington Post news article reported that many of us are shopping online just about as often as we take out the trash. That is, about 33 percent of us buy something on a phone or computer at least once per week. And, shopping via phones and online is only expected to increase as a recent Forester study revealed that more than one-third of retail sales will involve the use of mobile phones, whether in the researching, comparing or purchasing process.
9. Watching videos or movies. Could they be catching up on their binge-watching of their favorite shows or viewing funny cat videos on YouTube?
10. Catching up on personal emails. Are they clearing out their personal email accounts on your dime?
11. Reading the news or getting the latest sports statistics. Could they be using online sports gaming sites or crafting their fantasy football team?

All these things cost you and your business money.  Imagine how much time workers in the field waste this way?

Push to Talk: The Better Communication Option

There is a better option available for businesses to consider in Peak PTT.

Push to talk costs less than cellular service and gives you a greater oversight of your employees by offering the following benefits:

• GPS tracking so you know employee locations at all times.
• Enabling contact only with other employees and your company’s main office.
• Opportunities for group communication or one on one communication with individual employees.
• Elimination of unnecessary company-provided distractions that cost productivity.
• Safety to use while en route to job sites versus cell phone text messaging.
• Rugged devices to handle the rough and tumble nature of jobs in the field. (This means replacement equipment is necessary less often and less expensive than a cell phone.)

Push to talk walkie talkies offers a few other important features and benefits to consider as well. These are just a few of the impressive reasons you might want to adopt push to talk communication for your organization, instead of continuing to provide costly cellphones that are frequently abused by employees.

• The ability to send groupwide alerts and messages. This means your employees get the message even if they don’t “pick up the phone.”
• The ability to have instant communication. You only need to press a single button instead of looking up numbers or typing out messages, which can take up precious time when you have important messages to send.
• The ability to provide an SOS button. This gives your employees the opportunity to send out emergency notifications when accidents occur, or emergency situations arise. It provides you with peace of mind and provides the GPS location of your employee at the time the message is sent.
• The ability to comply with DOT regulations. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration( FMCSA) passed a law which limits the use of mobile phones by commercial drivers. Peak PTT enables compliance with this law.

Cellphones are great if you have money to burn, and they do have their place in certain types of situations. But most businesses need to make every expense matter, and that’s just one of the areas where push-to-talk radios shine.

Contact Peak PTT today to see how we can help you boost productivity and cut costs with push to talk or simply order online. Questions? Call: 855-600-6161.

With all eyes in the nation turned toward visions of safety and security, the creation of FirstNet is an attempt to provide a nationwide network specifically dedicated to first responders.

Congress authorized FirstNet in 2012 with the mission of developing and building a nationwide broadband network that allows first responders access to key information to aid them in their jobs of serving local communities.

Continue reading “FirstNet: What Mission Critical First Responders Should Know”

Firefighters have dangerous jobs that are often made more dangerous by communication challenges and obstacles.These hurdles often slow progress, especially when dealing with major fires and coordinating tactics between multiple firehouses or “hotshot” teams who battle massive wildfires.

Push to talk (PTT) communication hybrid radios helps to erase many of the communication barriers leveraging existing Land Mobile Radio frequencies & cellular/wifi data networks.  PTT communication can bridge the gap making communication easier than ever.

These are just a few benefits Hybrid PTT two-way radios and platform have to offer firefighters.

• Panic Button: This is one of the most critical elements of communication for firefighters. Not only does it allow firefighters in an emergency situation to relay their information and signal their distress instantly, it also provides GPS coordinates and sends the message out to everyone at once so there is no need to relay the message wasting precious time and resources. With traditional two-way radios, mayday or SOS signals sent by trapped firefighters are often missed if other firefighters are communicating via radio at the same time. With PTT, the mayday calls come through and vital emergency messages aren’t missed.
• GPS Locating: Another invaluable benefit is that you can locate individual radios on your map, so you know where all your firefighters are at any given time. This makes coordinating efforts to battle large blazes a much simpler proposition.
• Crystal Clear Redundant Communication:   Sometimes traditional Land Mobile Radios fail.  Many times radio reception inside of buildings can be garbled.  While, a PTT data driven device will work perfectly fine.  Using a combination LMR/PTT solution allows for virtually no dead spots and actually complement each other.

Firefighting is a challenging profession in the best of situations. The brave men and women who follow this calling place their lives at risk every day. And, due to factors like:

• Warmer temperatures in the summer
• Drier conditions providing more fuel for fires
• Lengthening fire risk season due to climate change

all increase the chances of a fire starting and a burning fire to spread in today’s world. In fact, several studies link increased wildfires to climate change.

For mission critical applications using a hybrid 2-way radio gives you the best of both worlds.  At Peak PTT, we are always looking at ways to improve and enhance our product offerings, we will be introducing a hybrid LMR/PTT radio in the not to distance future, and will conduct testing to see if it is a viable product to add to our line-up.

Shoot us an email – if this type of hybrid radio “Peaks” your interests you – info@peakptt.com

Saturday, July 27th was National Waterpark Day. (Who knew there was such a day?). While many waterparks throughout the company remain open only during the summer months, some located elsewhere in the country (hint Florida -Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach and Volcano Bay as examples) are open all year round.

Continue reading “Push to Talk for Outdoor and Indoor Waterpark Management”

Push to talk can be an instrumental tool for managing school buses and communicating with drivers who are on the road. Many states and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) have passed regulations banning the use of mobile phones by commercial transportation drivers.

Push to talk, or PTT, offers a viable solution that is safe for school bus drivers to use and complies with DOT regulations, while keeping drivers informed of important safety information, emergency notifications, and more.

Why Push to Talk for School Buses?

Push to talk technology through cellular or Wifi opens up a wide world of communication possibilities for school bus management to consider. Not only does it provide a means for effective communication between the district and school bus drivers about things like road construction rerouting, traffic congestion rerouting, weather-related issues, and other essential information, but, Peak PTT-84G radios are also equipped with GPS and panic button features.

This means if a fight breaks out on the school bus, a child fails to get off at his or her regular stop, or an accident occurs, the driver can send out an emergency notification with the push of a single button. When the driver sends this emergency message, it also provides the GPS location, so the appropriate help can respond immediately.

The benefits of GPS tracking for push to talk do not end there, though. Worried parents can gain invaluable peace of mind knowing that the location of the bus and driver can be tracked at all times, thanks to the GPS location technology in the radios.

This means you know when there are school bus transportation delays, you can get to the bottom of it,  allowing you to address concerns, including parental concerns when they call to ask what’s going on. Better yet, because you know about the delays, you can send text alerts to parents on the affected bus. This small gesture lets parents know they do not need to worry. Everyone benefits.

DOT Compliances for Push to Talk

Perhaps the most important thing to consider when adopting PTT radios for your school bus management and communications needs is that the radios meet DOT standards for compliance. PTT radios do this because they enable communication without requiring the driver to dial phone numbers, reach, or take their eyes off the road. Communication is possible, literally, by pushing one single button.

Push to talk radios can benefit your school bus management efforts in all these ways and more.

Contact Peak PTT today and let us discuss all the ways PTT can help you manage buses in your district more effectively. For more information, for a free demo or to place an order, call us toll-free at 855-600-6161.

Analog radios have long been the standard for two-way communication. But, times are changing. Today, digital two way radios are quickly becoming the new norm for push to talk, or PTT, communication.

Digital radio communication offers a variety of benefits well worth consider for companies considering taking the plunge and diving into push to talk over cellular and WiFi services for their organizations over antiquated analog technolgoy.

Transmitting and Receiving Differences between Analog and Digital

The primary difference, when it comes to analog vs. digital two way radios is how the radio signals are transmitted. Digital radios transmit sound by processing it into patterns of numbers.

This is unlike analog that uses electrical symbols that resemble sound waves to deliver sound. The differences in sound quality are profound, but that’s not the only different between the two.

Other differences betweenAnalog vs. digital two-way radios communications include the following:

• Digital radio communication is less power intensive than analog radio transmissions, meaning batteries last longer with digital radios.
• Digital radios offer superior range over analog radios meaning there can be greater distances between two users who continue to receive crystal-clear sound quality.
• Digital radios are capable of not only transmitting sound, but also of transmitting data, such as text messages.
• Digital radios are also GPS enabled, allowing you to monitor productivity, receive status reports, and track employee locations.
• Digital radios offer improved security features over analog radios, without sacrificing sound quality for that security.
• Analog radios are only capable of handling one two-way conversation at a time (on the same channel).
• Digital radios offer noise-cancelling technology that reduces background sounds so you they continue to be useful – even in noisy environments.

As you can see, the differences between the two are quite remarkable. Another point is this: analog radio has been around for a long time. While at the surface that might seem like a good thing. But advances in analog technology have largely been exhausted.

On the other hand, digital two-way radio communication is an emerging technology with plenty of room for growth.

Making the Most of Push to Talk for Your Business

Thanks to push to talk over WiFi and push to talk over cellular technology, two-way radio communication is once again becoming relevant for businesses and consumers alike. This is especially true since the FCC doesn’t require a license to operate push-to-talk radios operating via cellular and WiFi signals.

Peak PTT Digital Two-Way Radio Solution

Still have questions about analog vs. digital two-way radios? Peak PTT has answers and solutions that will help bring your business into the new millennium and beyond.

Contact us today to learn more about the potential benefits digital two-way radios, like the Peak PTT-84G,  have to offer your business and how we can help you enjoy these benefits best. 1-855-600-6161

Implementing push to talk, or PTT, two-way radio communication in your business is one of the most effective things you can do for facilitating effective communication between workers on your property and out in the field.

PTT communication offers a variety of benefits, including:

• Instant voice communication
• Location monitoring
• Secure communication
• Clear voice transmissions
• Emergency alert notifications

And it does it all with an easy-to-use system that leverages the power of cellular data and/or wi-fi networks to deliver crystal clear voice transmissions via the Internet. Because voice messages can be delivered and received with the touch of a button, it eliminates the need for or risk of employee texting and driving, improving safety on the road as well.

Two-way radio communication works wonders in a variety of industries, including:

• Event planning and coordinating
• Safety and Security Security
• Ambulance and Medical
• Waste Managment
• Transportation
• Towing
• Field Services
• Construction
• Energy
• Law Enforcement
• Firefighting
• Casinos and gaming
• Hospitality and hotels
• Retail
• Oil and gas
• Highway Maintenance
• Fish and Game Control
• Stadiums / Sporting Events
• Disaster recovery
• Golf Courses
• Airports
• Parks
• Ski Resorts
• Shipping Ports
• Cruise Ships
• And many, many more.

Now that you know many of the ways PTT communication benefits business, it’s time to explore ways to implement two-way radios into your business.

Educate Your Employees

Two-way radios have many features that may be unfamiliar with your employees. Adequate training needs to be provided before turning your people loose in the fields. They need training about the following:

• Two-way radio features
• Programmable buttons on their radios
• Emergency features/panic buttons on their radios
• How to use their radios to communicate with groups, and one-on-one
• How to care for their radios when not in use

Not only do your employees need to be trained in how to use their equipment effectively, but also in who to go to, within your organization, whenever there are problems with the equipment, technical issues, lost equipment, stolen equipment, damaged equipment, etc.

Facilitate Use of Equipment

The easier you make it for your employees to use new equipment, the more likely it becomes they’ll embrace the new equipment without reverting back to old communications standards they are more familiar, and comfortable, with. Install mounting clips near vehicle steering wheels where radios can be placed and used while driving. Consider Bluetooth headsets to reduce possible distracted driving issues.

Implementing push-to-talk radios in your business, is easier than you might realize. Once the newness of the equipment wears off and employees grow accustomed to using their equipment, you’ll probably wonder how you ever got along without it.

Call Peak PTT today at 855-600-6161 to learn how we can help you implement PTT two-way radios in your business.

By now you’ve learned the benefits push to talk (PTT) communication has to offer your business or organization. Now it’s time to choose the radio that works best for your people in the field to use.

The Peak PTT 4G LTE radio has a lot to offer your organization no matter what industry you operate in. These are some of the features included in your Peak PTT 4G Push to Talk.

GPS Tracking

GPS tracking is one of the most invaluable tools available to businesses who have people working in the field or out of the office today. With the Peak PTT-84G Radio, you get access to the exclusive Peak PTT GPS Tracking Portal.

This portal is exclusive for Peak PTT customers and not available with any other company. Our GPS tracking featured include device locations updated every 60 seconds, device tracking for up to 90 days in the past, geo-fencing, and SMS notifications for specified status reports.

SOS Button

In addition to instant communication, the PTT-84G radio also offers the convenience and safety of an instant emergency notification system that alerts everyone to the details of the emergency and the location of the emergency with the pressing of a single button. This aids in the dispatch of the appropriate emergency service providers to the scene.

Included Tools and Accessories

Of course, there are certain items that come with your Peak PTT radio to ensure that it operates effectively. These tools include:

• Your new Peak PTT-84G radio
• A belt-clip for convenient carrying
• One rechargeable battery
• Charging station for keeping your radio charged
• A power cord for your charging station
• A 12-month limited warranty

The rechargeable 5200 mAh battery offers 42 hours of standby time and between eight and 12 hours of usage (depending on how heavily the battery is used during this time). The battery may be charged with a vehicle lighter adapter. The 12 VDC car charger is not included with your radio but is available to purchase.

Other available accessories include:

• Extra batteries
• Surveillance earpiece
• Lapel Microphone
• Peak PTT dispatch software which allows your device to work as a dispatch portal for a nominal setup and monthly fee
• iOS Peak PTT App
• Android Peak PTT App

Peak PTT offers many accessories and features to help you maximize your communication efficiency. We believe our service can help you improve communication in every industry.

Contact us here at Peak PTT today to learn more about our products, accessories, and service and what they can mean for your organization. Call 855-600-6161 or chat with us via our Live Support Chat.