Edinburgh Marathon runs smoothly with Entel HX400
The 4th consecutive Edinburgh Marathon took place on Sunday 27th May with record numbers of entrants in spite of the poor weather. The Edinburgh Marathon offers runners the ultimate personal challenge with a spectacularly scenic route, which takes runners past many of Edinburgh’s most famous landmarks and tourist attractions.
Communications are key to the organisation and planning of any public event – the comfort and safety of the public, as well as those participating, depends on it. This year, planning experts took no chances and engaged the services of Glasgow–based Entel dealer, Scotia Radio Services, who had no hesitation in recommending the Entel HX480 UHF radios to provide reliable route–long coverage for both the supervisors and local ambulance service.
Scotia’s Eddie Gallacher said of the HX400 radios, “The radios were absolutely fine for the whole day. The Lithium–Ion batteries have superior capacity so we didn’t even need to supply spare batteries. The radios are easy to operate which made things much simpler for event organisers.”
Compact and lightweight, the HX400 radios have always been popular with those who have to carry them around all day (security men, event marshals, etc), while the 1700mAh Lithium–Ion batteries deliver a duty cycle of between 11 and 14 hours from a single charge. These radios can be used for simple “back-to-back” communications, or, with the “intelligent” versions, can offer additional safety features like “lone worker” or “man down” facilities.
Happily, the Edinburgh marathon passed off without any unfortunate incidents, so the Entel HX400s were only required to co-ordinate water supplies and link up other volunteer support services along the 26–mile route. Scotia Radio Services fully intends to use these radios for next year’s marathon too, making the Entel HX400 the front–runner for event communications in 2008.