What to Send a Supplier for a Radio System Quotation
Most project enquiries arrive as "we need radios for a mine, please quote" and then take two weeks of questions to become quotable. Twelve pieces of information turn that into a single round. None of them requires an RF engineer, and eight of them you already have.
| Specification | Why it changes.. | What to send.. |
|---|---|---|
| Item | Why it changes the quotation | What to send if you do not have it |
| Site plan with distances | Sets whether direct handheld coverage is plausible at all | A satellite screenshot with two points marked and a rough scale |
| Buildings, floors, underground areas | Structure costs more range than distance; drives repeater count and topology | Count of buildings, floors per building, any basement or tunnel |
| Headcount and peak shift | Drives radio quantity; peak, not total, drives capacity | Approximate number on shift at the busiest hour |
| Roles needing separate groups | Drives talk-group structure and therefore programming scope | List of job functions that must not share a channel |
| Existing fleet: make, model, band | Decides whether new units can interoperate or must stand alone | Photo of the model label and the battery compartment |
| Whether you hold the programming file | Decides whether existing units can be merged into the new plan | Ask your current dealer; if unclear, say so |
| Frequency licence status | The band and bandwidth cannot be proposed without it | Copy of the assignment, or the fact that none exists yet |
| Hazardous-area classification | Changes the terminal model and often the accessory set | Zone classification per area, from your safety documentation |
| Dispatch, recording, GPS needs | Adds console-side items that are not radios | State yes/no per function, even if unsure of the detail |
| Destination country and terms | Drives export documents, duties and delivery time | Country, city, and whether you want DDP or DAP |
| Target date and budget range | Decides whether a proposal is realistic or aspirational | A date, and a range if one is fixed |
| Drawings or photos | Removes most of the remaining ambiguity | Any plan, even hand-drawn, plus site photos |
Requirement Gathering
The reason enquiries take several rounds is not that suppliers are slow; it is that the design branches on information the buyer did not know was load-bearing. Distance and structure decide whether a repeater is needed. Peak shift size, not total headcount, decides how many radios are on the floor. The licence decides the band, and the band decides which models are even eligible. Hazardous-area classification can change the handheld model, the battery and the headset, and it is the item most often discovered late, after the price has been agreed. None of this requires technical preparation: eight of the twelve items are facts about your own operation. Send them in one message, even roughly. A rough number that is honestly labelled is far more useful than a precise figure invented to fill a field.
Quotation Inputs
Two rules make the enquiry efficient. First, say which items are missing rather than leaving the field blank, so the supplier knows whether you have no answer or simply did not reach that field. Second, ask for the reasoning in the response, not just the price: why this many radios, why this many repeaters, why this band, and which lines are optional. A proposal that answers those four questions can be reviewed in an afternoon; a price list cannot be reviewed at all, because there is nothing to check it against. If the site is a tender, add the compliance documents you will be judged on - certification evidence per exact model variant, warranty terms, and delivery commitments - to the first message rather than the fifth. Suppliers who cannot supply those quickly are telling you something useful early.
Data Source: Data set mirrors the project requirement form published on /systems and /quote, which was written from the questions that actually change a configuration. No project examples are cited.
Fleet Pricing & Lead Time
Send your model list and quantities — pricing, stock and DAP/DDP terms within one working day.
