Welcome to the Holiday Edition!

Welcome, everyone, to the holiday edition of the RACOM Repeater. I hope your holiday season is going well!

As I sit here at my desk writing this on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2016, I’m looking out the window watching snowflakes fly and see the wind chill is hovering around zero degrees. As they say on one of my favorite television shows — Game of Thrones — “Winter is coming …”

The cold is tough to get used to again, but, tomorrow, I leave to attend the worldwide Tait Communications sales meeting at their headquarters in Christchurch, New Zealand. The downside is the 15-hour flight and being away from family and friends — but the upside is that it’s now summer in New Zealand!

2016 had lots of big events and substantial changes for us at RACOM. The Tait partnership mentioned above is not the least of them. Harris’ recent partnership with Tait has pulled together the two technology leaders — Harris with P25 trunking and multiband mobiles and portables and Tait with P25 conventional and DMR Tier III — in such a way that RACOM continues to offer the very best technology choices available in the land mobile radio space. Evidence of this can be found in the story in this newsletter about our recent contract award in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. They picked RACOM and Tait due, in large part, to the technical differentiators of the Tait P25 conventional equipment over competitive offerings.

Another big event in 2016 was the continued growth of the SARA Network. The SARA (Shared Area Radio Agreement) Network is a collection of connected Harris-based P25 systems in Iowa. Collectively, these 700 and 800 MHz P25 trunking systems span multiple counties, over four dozen tower sites, and 7,000 radios. The SARA system is the largest P25 trunking system in the state of Iowa by all relevant measures. SARA’s delivered promises of purpose-built in-building coverage, immersive interoperability, and total local authority, control, and decision-making power are resonating. Iowa County selected the SARA network as their new first responder radio system as testimony.

I’m grateful and thankful to all of you for helping us at RACOM have a terrific year. Because of the events above and so many others, we’ve been busier helping you accomplish your mission in 2016 more than any previous year in our company’s nearly five-decade history. I hope it’s because you recognize that we’re committed to our mission every day:

RACOM Mission Statement
RACOM’s mission is to help keep the public safe and secure by providing Rugged, Resilient, and Robust communications solutions backed with the most Reliable, Responsive, and Relentless implementation and support to first responders everywhere.

To absorb this growth, we’ve added new systems, processes, and people. In fact, we hired more new RACOM-ers this year than in any previous year in recent history. While you may see some new faces in 2017, we’ll always be guided by the same mission of putting your needs first.

Best of luck to you, your family, and your business for a great 2017!

— Mike Miller