FAQ – Q & A General Questions

In rural areas, it is usually a simple process of applying for an exclusive license and paying the fees.  MRA dba Raycom can prepare the application for you and submit it to the FCC for processing.  Sometimes, the rural area is too close to an urban area where the frequency congestion is sufficient to keep you from being able to obtain an exclusive channel.  In urban areas, it is far more difficult to answer because it is a very complicated issue.  Most of the time, the answer is a resounding NO!  There is a page on the website regarding FCC licensing that will address some of the issue and an article about “Spectrum Issues for High Technology Radio Systems” which address the issue in detail. We also have an article about “Exclusive vs Shared Frequencies” Exclusive vs Shared

Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, Santa Barbara and Imperial counties plus the Eastern Sierras, Las Vegas, Central & Southern Nevada, Coachella Valley, Imperial Valley, Yuma, Az. Digital Coverage Maps

Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura counties. LTR Coverage

All radio systems in land mobile must be licensed.  You can operate your radios under a license that you obtain from the FCC or you may use the MRA licenses if you subscribe to our airtime services in lieu of having your own license.  However, there must be a license under which the radio system operates.  There are some unlicensed services which are listed on our FCC licensing page of the website, but those services are not land mobile radio. FCC Licensing

If you are licensed by the FCC for your radio system, you must receive approval prior to transfer of the FCC license. This must be prior to the sale of the company radio system or other company assets. If you are operating your radio system under a license of MRA or some other company, you do not have to get FCC permission. However, you need to get our permission to transfer your agreement with MRA.

We can provide a no charge demo for most (but not all) radio systems so that you can try out the system before you purchase it. Get A Free Demo

2 years for defects in material and workmanship. Most Kenwood accessories have a 1 year warranty.  Warranty does not include travel or shipping expenses, misuse or abuse of the product, damage from sources external to the radios such as wrong polarity applied to the radio, wrong voltage, voltage surges, lightning strike, dropping the radio, damage from water or other liquids entering the radio, physical damage such as dropping or throwing the radio,

YES. We can fix your radio communications. However depending upon what is wrong and what needs to be done, it may come at a price that you do not feel you can afford to spend. Some problems are very complex and require resolving many layers of problems while other problems are easy to fix. Our technicians are extremely capable of resolving radio system problems.

depends upon circumstances. The cost of radios has come down considerably in the last 40 years and it is often cheaper to purchase a new radio with a new warranty than it is to repair the old radio. With the hourly labor rates being about 20% of the cost of the radio, we must be able to fix the radio quickly or it is not worth the cost of the repairs. Many years ago, we could spend 5 hours repairing a radio plus adding parts and still be way below the cost of a radio. Now, if we spend more than 2 hours fixing a radio, it is often better to replace the radio.

Generally, we can provide our own financing for most companies. All companies that we finance must clear our credit department and be purchasing equipment that we can readily reuse. We also have equipment leases from leasing companies that are willing to finance radio equipment.

We have short term rentals for special events, medium term radios for projects that last 1-10 months and we have long term rentals that last 1 year to indefinite. Radio Rentals

YES, we bill most of our accounts. We have very few customers on COD who have earned the COD requirement by not paying their account in reasonable terms.

Yes we do accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. Many of our customers prefer to have us charge their credit card monthly for payment of services while others prefer to be billed. Let us know your preferences and we can do it your way!

Yes we can. However, what we can provide for your budget may not be what you wish to accomplish. We can do a lot with a small budget, but we can only do so much.

First, we have more coverage in Southern California than anyone else.  (Please see our coverage maps on the website.)  We have lots of coverage where cellular does not work, but nobody has coverage everywhere.  If you need coverage where we do not cover, we can install equipment to cover the area. MRA will consider installing additional coverage on our digital network if you are placing a sufficient number of radios on our service.

Yes, we can do it. However, it may not be the best solution for you as we find many entities that say that they only need coverage at their business find that they want to be able to radio personnel who are off site. Whenever we install a radio system, we find that company personnel are often wishing that their radio system would work from their house when they go home or from other locations when they need to leave the property for some reason.

Yes we can do it.  Our digital radio network has more coverage than any other radio system and you can usually use a portable radio from most locations.  Please consult our coverage maps on the website.

We can rent you radio equipment or we can sell you radios on a time payment program upon approval of credit.  We have many programs to assist you in getting the communications you need at a price that you can afford.

There are many reasons for using two-way radio instead of cellular. They include (1) being able to talk to an entire group of people about an issue at once which cannot be done on cellular, (2) call setup time is typically less than 1 second compared with cellular where you have to recall the number, dial, wait for the ringing and often get a voice mail, (3) having coverage where there is no cellular coverage, (4) keeping your people dealing with the job at hand instead of being distracted by the hundreds of things that a smart phone will do, (5) being able to monitor engine metrics with the radio system to know about the condition of your vehicles, (6) being able to track vehicles with GPS with the same radio, (7) being able to send data messages with the same device.

Yes, depending upon circumstances.  We generally have most of the equipment in stock and can install the equipment as soon as the paperwork is processed.  We have installed equipment the same or next day in many cases.  However, larger systems generally require more time for planning.

Usually, we cannot reuse your antennas, but not always. Our system requires wide bandwidth antennas which are typically not sold to users unless they are required for proper operation because they are more expensive. The portions of our system that are outside the LA / Orange County / Riverside / San Bernardino areas do not require the wide bandwidth antennas, so if you coverage needs are outside that area, it may be possible to reuse existing antennas if you have existing UHF antennas and they work properly. Most of the time that we reuse the antenna from a customer, they become a maintenance problem and we get blamed for the radio problem when it originates in the reused antenna that we did not supply. Therefore, we do not recommend it even if it is possible under the circumstances.

Our fees are structured not to include those items. We could include them if we charged higher prices in general. If you want a program that includes all charges, please review our maintenance section of our website for all inclusive plans.

What do you want us to leave out so that we match the price? Usually, we include more than other companies when we sell the radio. When you compare price, you need to compare everything that you get. If you have a specific request for us to consider, please let us know and we will see what we can do to accommodate the request.

If you are unhappy, why shouldn’t you change radio providers? We can solve your problem and we can prove it. The main reason for not changing is the cost of the change. The big question is “What is it costing you not to change”? Are you compromising your operation, efficiency, safety, customer service or something else? Failure to act is a decision not to fix the problem which can cost you for more than it cost to fix the problem.