Two-Way Radio Systems

Designed by engineers. Secured to a standard. Supplied to suit the site — not the sales target.

Two-way radio is still the most reliable way to talk across a site. It works when the mobile network is congested. It works in a power cut. It connects a whole team with one press, instantly, with no call to dial and no app to open.

But a radio system is only as good as the way it is designed, configured, and secured — and that is where most fall down.

Yesway designs, supplies, and integrates professional two-way radio systems across Lincolnshire and nationwide. We are manufacturer-independent: we specify the right equipment for your site, not the brand we happen to stock. And because our background is in operational-technology (OT) security and aerospace reliability engineering, every system we design is assessed as part of your wider infrastructure — not bolted on and forgotten.

What is a two-way radio system?

A two-way radio (also called a walkie-talkie or, professionally, a land mobile radio) lets users both transmit and receive — unlike a broadcast radio, which only receives.

A professional system is more than a box of handsets. It usually includes:

Handsets (portables) — carried by users on site.
Mobiles — fitted in vehicles.
A repeater — a fixed unit, often on a mast or rooftop, that receives a weak signal and re-transmits it at higher power. A repeater is what extends coverage across a large site or town.
Antennas, base stations, and licensing — the fixed infrastructure that ties it together.

Get the design right and a team of any size has clear, instant communication across the whole site. Get it wrong and you have dead spots, dropped calls, and — increasingly — a security gap.

Which technology is right for you?

There is no single “best” radio technology. The right choice depends on your site size, user count, coverage needs, and security obligations. Here are the four you are most likely to be offered.

Analogue. The original, and still useful. Simple, cheap, and reliable for small sites with a handful of users. The trade-off: no encryption, limited features, and no easy way to manage many users.

DMR (Digital Mobile Radio). The most common professional choice today. Clearer audio than analogue, longer battery life, and double the capacity on the same channel. DMR supports encryption and text data — but it is frequently sold with encryption switched off or wrongly configured, which is a problem we see on audits constantly.

TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio). The mission-critical standard, used by emergency services and large industrial sites. It offers trunking (automatically sharing channels across many users), native encryption, and high resilience. It is more expensive, and right when you genuinely need scale and reliability.

PoC (Push-to-Talk over Cellular). Radio-style communication carried over the mobile/4G network instead of your own radio frequencies. The advantage is nationwide coverage with no masts to maintain. The trade-off: your traffic passes through a third-party cloud platform, which raises questions for any organisation with data-protection or IEC 62443 obligations.

Not sure which fits? We wrote a full comparison: DMR vs TETRA vs PoC. Or skip the reading and ask us — the right answer starts with your requirement, not the product.

What we do — the engineering side

We are not a box-shifter. We are engineers and trainers who design and integrate radio systems. A typical project runs like this:

1. Site survey. We measure coverage where you actually work — inside buildings, across yards, in the places handheld radios usually struggle. No guesswork.

2. System design. We specify the right technology, channels, and infrastructure for your site, factoring in resilience and backup. This is where our aerospace reliability background earns its keep: we design for the failure, not just the demo.

3. Ofcom licensing. Most professional radio use in the UK needs a licence from Ofcom (the UK communications regulator). We manage the application so you stay legal.

4. Installation and configuration. Including correct encryption setup — not left on the default.

5. Training and support. We are PGCE-qualified (a professional teaching qualification), so your team is actually shown how to use the system properly, not handed a box and a leaflet.

What we supply — the equipment side

We supply and hire professional radio equipment from the leading manufacturers — Hytera, Motorola, Icom, Kenwood, and Tait among them. Because we are independent, we recommend on merit.

Sales. New handsets, mobiles, repeaters, and accessories, specified to your system and configured before they reach you.

Hire. Short-term radio hire for events, seasonal peaks, or one-off projects — fully charged, programmed, and ready to use. Ideal when you need reliable communication for a weekend, not a five-year commitment.

Maintenance and support. Ongoing service so the system keeps working long after install.

Previous clients include Lincoln Cathedral and Landis+Gyr, across sectors from heritage sites to industrial manufacturing.

The question most suppliers do not ask

Most organisations choose a radio system on coverage, handset cost, and features. The question that is rarely asked is the one that matters most:

How secure is your radio network — and who has assessed it?

A two-way radio link is a communications conduit into your operation. Under IEC 62443 — the international standard for securing industrial control systems — that conduit has to be assessed, regardless of which technology sits underneath it. On real sites we routinely find encryption disabled, talkgroups (the digital equivalent of a shared channel) open to anyone with a compatible radio, and telemetry links that were never assessed at all.

Yesway is the rare supplier that can both design your radio system and tell you whether it is secure. If you operate under IEC 62443, NIS2, or the UK Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, that matters.

Learn more about our IEC 62443 Wireless Audits.

Talk to an engineer

Whether you need a handful of handsets for the weekend or a site-wide system that stands up to scrutiny, the conversation starts the same way — with your requirement, not a product.

[Get a quote] · [Book a wireless audit] · Call us on 0871 234 0878

Manufacturer-independent. Engineer-delivered. Lincoln and nationwide.

Business Two-Way Radio Systems | Designed & Secured | Yesway