Aviation Communication

Two Way Radios for Airports & Aviation Communication

Connect your team with faster speed, instant communication and ease. We connect all users whether you’re on the tarmac, behind the desk, on foot or on craft.

Keep your team connected between control centres, flight crews, centre staff, baggage, security and emergency personnel.

      
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Airports & Aviation

Airside and landside are two different radio problems.

Digicom Wireless supplies two way radio fleets and in-building coverage for airport operators, ground handling contractors, security providers, engineering teams and terminal tenants across Australia. Whether you are on the tarmac or three levels down in the car park, the system has to work first time.

The Problem

A handset that works in the terminal can be useless on the apron

Airside is a high noise environment. Turbine wash, ground power units, belt loaders and tugs sit on top of every transmission, and crew are already wearing hearing protection. A stock speaker microphone cannot cut through it. Ramp to control comms need dual-mic noise cancelling, a proper headset interface and audio profiles set for the position rather than a factory default.

Landside fails the other way. Terminals, multi-storey car parks and underground service roads are concrete, steel and glass, so mobile signal drops out a few metres past the door. Cleaners, duty managers and retail tenants lose reception in exactly the areas passengers are queued up in. That is an in-building cellular problem, and it needs measuring before anything gets installed.

Why It Matters

Turnaround time is measured in minutes and comms decide most of them

An apron turnaround runs to a schedule with almost no slack. Refuelling, catering, baggage, cleaning and pushback all have to be sequenced by voice. Every repeated call and every clarification eats into the slot, and when ground crew cannot raise the load controller first time the delay lands on the airline.

A precinct also runs several organisations at once. Ground handling, security, baggage, maintenance and retail each need their own talkgroup plus a controlled way to reach each other during an incident. That is a channel planning question rather than a handset question, and it is cheaper to settle it before any equipment is ordered. Our advanced radio solutions cover the dispatch, tracking and alerting layers that sit above the voice fleet.

Motorola Solutions Platinum Channel Partner
ARCIA & ACMA accredited
ACMA type-approved equipment only

Getting It Right

What an airport plan has to settle before anything is ordered.

Precincts get expensive when the same problem is fixed twice. These are the three we work through with airport operators and their contractors before a single handset is quoted.

Channel planning across every operator on site

Ground handling, security, baggage, maintenance and retail each need their own talkgroup and a controlled path to reach each other. A conventional multi-channel fleet suits a regional field. Once the user count climbs, a trunked system makes far better use of the spectrum you are licensed for. We handle ACMA licensing and frequency coordination, and layer TRBOnet dispatch over the top so the control room can see and record every talkgroup.

Audio matched to the noise level of the position

Ramp to control comms live or die on the microphone, not the radio. Dual-mic noise cancelling strips the engine and ground equipment noise out before it is transmitted, and the right headset or heavy duty earpiece keeps the crew compliant with hearing protection. We set audio profiles per position, so a baggage handler, a marshaller and a terminal duty manager are not all running the same default.

Terminal, car park and underground coverage

Concrete, structural steel and coated glass all attenuate signal. Before we design anything we run an RF survey and, on any shared antenna infrastructure, a PIM test so the system is not commissioned onto a faulty connector. Coverage is then delivered with a distributed antenna system or in-building cellular, sized to the zones that actually fail.

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Recommended for Airports

Two handsets that hold up across a full apron shift.

Most airport fleets end up as a mix: licensed UHF for the operational core airside, and push-to-talk over cellular for the tenants, shuttles and contractors who move across the whole precinct. For peak periods and new airline launches we also supply the same models from our digital hire fleet, pre-programmed to your channel plan.

Motorola MOTOTRBO R7

The apron handset. Dual-mic noise cancelling keeps speech readable next to running engines, GNSS gives dispatch a position on the ramp, and the emergency button and man down options cover crew working alone. Full keypad for multi-talkgroup fleets.

Motorola WAVE TLK 100

The precinct handset. Talks over the 4G and 5G network rather than your licensed channels, so terminal tenants, cleaning crews, shuttle drivers and car park staff can be reached anywhere the network goes, including off-airport depots.

Speak With a Specialist Shop Airport Radios

Motorola WAVE PTX

Push-to-talk that keeps working 23 metres underground.

Airport Link (ALC) runs stations and rail infrastructure well below the terminal. We delivered a push-to-talk over cellular solution that holds a talkgroup together 23 metres underground, where a conventional handheld on its own would have been cut off from the surface. The full write-up sits in our case studies.

The same approach suits the parts of a precinct that a licensed UHF fleet was never sized for: retail and food tenancies, cleaning contractors, shuttle and car park operators, and staff who travel between an off-airport depot and the terminal. Motorola WAVE PTX can also be bridged into the licensed fleet, so a tenant on a phone app and a ground handler on an R7 sit in the same conversation when an incident is called.

Where the network itself is the weak point, we fix that separately with radio over cellular design and in-building coverage rather than asking the handset to do something physics will not allow.

Covers landside, car parks and off-airport depots on one talkgroup
No extra licensed channels needed for tenants and contractors
Bridges into an existing MOTOTRBO fleet for joint incident calls
GPS location and group call from the dispatch console
Scales up for a peak season and back down again afterwards
Supplied and supported as a Motorola WAVE PTX Specialist

Coverage Zones

One precinct, mapped zone by zone.

The security boundary splits the site into two very different engineering problems. We quote them separately because they are solved with different equipment, different licensing and, usually, different budgets.

Airside

Past the boundary, where noise and movement set the rules

Licensed UHF, hardened audio and position awareness. Everything here has to survive weather, jet blast and a 24 hour roster, and every user needs to be traceable to a talkgroup and a supervisor.

Apron and ramp talkgroups Runway and taxiway vehicle GPS Fuel farm and hazardous areas Baggage and freight yards Hangars and engineering Lone worker and man down

Landside

Inside the building, where the structure fights the signal

Terminals, car parks and service roads are a coverage engineering job before they are a radio job. We measure first, then design the layer that fixes the zone that actually fails.

Terminal in-building cellular Multi-storey car park DAS Underground service roads Retail and food tenancies Screening and security patrols Free coverage evaluation

Common Questions

What airport operations teams ask us first.

Straight answers on licensing, coverage, noise and hire. If your question is not here, the contact form below reaches a specialist rather than a call centre.

Do we need an ACMA licence for two way radios at an airport? Almost always yes for operational fleets, and we arrange it.

Any commercial fleet operating on dedicated frequencies needs an ACMA apparatus licence. Licence-free UHF CB channels are shared with the public, which is not appropriate for apron or security traffic on a site of this size.

We are ARCIA and ACMA accredited and handle the application, frequency coordination and renewal, including coordinating with existing users on and around the precinct so you are not fighting for a channel. All equipment we supply is ACMA type-approved for use in Australia.

Can two way radios and mobile phones work in an underground car park? Yes, with the right in-building layer behind them.

Not on their own. Below grade, reinforced concrete stops both the mobile network and any signal from a rooftop radio antenna. The fix is to bring the signal down there deliberately.

For phones that means in-building cellular or a distributed antenna system. For radios it means an in-building repeater and antenna run. We have delivered push-to-talk over cellular that works 23 metres underground at Airport Link, which is documented in our case studies.

Start with a survey. Our team can measure the levels floor by floor and tell you which zones genuinely need infrastructure and which are fine.

How do you stop ground crew missing calls in engine noise? Microphone design and audio profiles, not more wattage.

Turning the volume up does not help when the crew are wearing hearing protection. What helps is stopping the noise being transmitted in the first place.

Dual-mic noise cancelling handsets sample the background and subtract it, so the receiving end hears speech rather than turbine wash. Pair that with a headset or heavy duty earpiece rated for the position, and set an audio profile per role rather than shipping every radio on the factory default.

Can ground handling, security, baggage and retail share one radio system? Yes, on separate talkgroups with a controlled all-call.

That is normally the right answer. Each organisation gets its own talkgroup so day to day chatter stays separate, with a defined priority and emergency path that can reach everyone when an incident is declared.

Once the user count grows past what conventional multi-channel handles comfortably, a trunked system uses the licensed spectrum far more efficiently. A dispatch layer such as TRBOnet gives the control room a live view of every talkgroup, plus recording and text messaging.

Can we hire radios for a peak period or a new airline launch? Yes. Pre-programmed hire fleet, short or long term.

Peak season, a terminal works package or a new route launch rarely justifies buying handsets you will not need in three months. Our hire fleet ships pre-programmed to your channel plan with chargers and accessories, so the extra crew are on air the day they start.

If the requirement turns out to be permanent, leasing spreads the cost of a purchased fleet across the term instead of a single capital hit.

What is PIM testing and why does an airport need it? It finds faults in shared antenna infrastructure before they cost you.

Passive intermodulation is interference generated by the passive parts of an antenna system: connectors, cables, joints and corroded hardware. It gets worse with age, weather and vibration, and it degrades a system that looks perfectly healthy on paper.

On a precinct with shared risers, rooftop mounts and long cable runs, a PIM test tells you whether a coverage complaint is a design problem or a hardware fault. We run RF coverage and PIM testing Australia wide, and pre and post fit-out testing so a contractor hands the space back in a known state.

How do we cover staff working alone overnight? Lone worker timers, man down and GPS on the same handset.

Cleaning, engineering and security night shifts often have people well away from anyone else. A lone worker timer prompts the user at set intervals and escalates if they do not respond. Man down triggers on tilt or lack of movement.

Both feed into emergency alarm management at the control room, and where GPS is enabled the alert arrives with a location rather than just a radio ID. We can also set this up on push-to-talk over cellular devices for staff who work landside or off site.

Who We Equip

The teams we supply across an airport precinct.

A terminal is a landlord, a dozen contractors and several regulators sharing one site. Each group needs something slightly different from the same communications plan.

Airport Operators and Terminal Management

The precinct-wide channel plan, the licence, the dispatch console and the coverage infrastructure that every tenant then plugs into. We design it so contractors can be added and removed without reworking the system.

Ground Handling and Ramp Services

Noise-cancelling handsets for pushback, loading, marshalling and refuelling crews, with GPS on ramp vehicles so the load controller can see where a tug or a loader is without asking.

Aviation Security and Screening

Priority and emergency call, duress alerting and recorded audio for incident review. Many of these requirements overlap with our security and emergency response work, so the specification carries across directly.

Baggage, Freight and Landside Transport

Baggage halls, ULD yards, freight forwarders and the bus and coach operators moving through the precinct. In-vehicle radios and fleet tracking, shared with our transport and logistics approach.

Engineering, Cleaning and Facilities Contractors

Plant rooms, roof access, baggage plant and after-hours works. Lone worker and man down cover night shifts, and the fleet ties into the wider facilities management system rather than sitting on its own island.

Airlines, Lounges and Retail Tenants

Push-to-talk over cellular for tenants who need to reach terminal operations without a licensed handset. Ideal for new route launches and seasonal peaks, and available from our hire fleet on short terms.

Start With the Survey

Find out which zones actually fail before you spend

We will walk the site, measure the levels airside and landside, and come back with a channel plan, a licensing path and a coverage design you can put in front of a budget holder. Based in Sydney and working across Australia.

Book a Site Assessment Call 1300 398 221