During the current Covid pandemic we hear stories daily, from around the world of initiatives to help communities and countries survive this current global crisis.

Czech citizens are well known for their community spirit. Many people are sewing face masks at home and in local communities for use wherever needed; in hospitals, retirement homes, for essential workers etc. As part of this national initiative we are happy to report that RACOM and our staff are doing what we can to support local efforts. Many of us have been making face masks for the local communities where we live. As part of our collective efforts, we have even designed and made the latest must have RACOM face mask fashion accessory.

Worthy of a special mention, our mechanical designer is supporting a cause of particular note. He came across another nationwide initiative ‘3D printing against Covid’ on Social media. This initiative provides printing and distribution of protective face shields to be used by doctors, nurses and other front line workers in the fight against Covid-19. Fortunately there was already a local group in our region organized by Scouts. Milan quickly decided he should support this worthy effort and discussed the possibility with his line manager at RACOM.

As a Covid home-office worker, Milan transferred all RACOM 3D printing equipment home, set up his own printing lab and got to work producing shields in accordance with strict guidelines. After refining the manufacturing technique, reducing printing time by 40%, he has been producing 10 shields a day and will continue as long as there is a demand for this essential equipment. Milan is fully supported by RACOM and his work RACOM duties have been minimized to support his community action.

The initiative was started by Prusa Research, a Czech producer of 3D printers who developed a prototype over 3 days making the designs and CAD available to others for free.

Anyone wishing to join this initiative can get more information here and watch a video of the fabrication technique here.

RACOM management has adapted structures to meet new COVID requirements, applying smart new strategies taken from rescue services and utility organizations. Such measures ensure production levels and other activities continue unaffected in the functioning of the company.

Many staff are working from home and following government quarantine guidelines.

Those who can only perform their job by being present at RACOM premises at our HQ, mechanical and SMT plants are now split into shifts and with no physical contact with each other.

Personal hygiene is a priority; everyone must wear a face mask at all times and staff are working in isolated spaces, using all the extra available offices with maximum consideration for social distancing. Each shift works alternate days, ensuring the whole work place can be thoroughly disinfected between each shift.

All meetings with more than 2 people are conducted remotely using teleconferencing tools. All RACOM visits are prohibited and we communicate with our customers and partners remotely.

Material receipt and expediting operate on a non-contact basis with forwarders.

All these measures ensure that any health issue would affect a very limited part of RACOM.

Our purchasing department is constantly in touch with our component suppliers to ensure we have no outages in component supplies.

Our staff and their health are our number one priority and we are confident we meet all our obligations being able to support and supply our customers without any outages. However we apologize in advance if you experience any minor disruptions or delays.

For as long as emergency measures of this sort are required, you can be assured that RACOM is ready to cope and supply the world with essential communication equipment.

As the COVID-19 virus brings uncertainty to our world, please know RACOM stands with you. Our resilient business procedures allow us to navigate the effects of this pandemic and keep our employees safe. We are here to support you.  

• Our production continues without any outages

Our infrastructure and production are robust. Production and shipping continue as normal and we anticipate that we will be able to respond well in any situation.

We are in regular communication with our suppliers and have not heard any negative information to concern us.  Whilst we expect no change to our service levels, we apologize in advance if you experience any minor disruptions or delays. If we become aware of any potential problems, we will inform you in a timely manner and look to provide the most suitable solution.

• RACOM is ready to support others regardless of profit

Since many people are now working from home, there is a much higher requirement for internet connections. RACOM is ready to provide special conditions and prices for its Microwave links used for internet connections and SW keys for higher speed. Contact us for details.

• Safety and health of our staff is our first priority….

• Where possible, people work from home office

• Higher hygienic measures in place at all workplaces

RACOM has had tools in place for many years to support working from home, communicating remotely in one-to-one and group situations. This has made it a relatively easy process to encourage all staff, not physically required to be at RACOM’s premises, to self-isolate and work remotely from home.

For those colleagues who need to attend work, measures have been introduced to guarantee higher levels of hygiene and to ensure maximum ‘social distancing’ becomes an everyday part of life at RACOM. This also includes non-contact with visitors and mechanisms in place to ensure deliveries and collections can continue without the need for personal contact.

• All government recommendations and regulations are fully implemented in RACOM

RACOM management is closely monitoring the situation and carefully tracks all recommendations and regulations regarding COVID-19 announced by the Czech government. All are immediately put in place.

RACOM is fully committed to supporting the Americas having dedicated resources to establish the infrastructure needed for this expansive and diverse market. We always enjoy the challenge of proving the reliability and robustness of our products and North and South America are continents that provide these extreme challenges with high mountain ranges, great plains, deserts, jungles and expansive artic regions. From the North of Canada to Argentina and Chile in the South, our Radio modems, Cellular routers and Microwave radios are meeting customers’ requirements and providing solutions, working in the background for the benefit of everyone.

RACOM places special emphasis on the close and lasting relationships we enjoy with our partners. We look at all potential opportunities and make decisions based on a number of criteria to ensure partners are right for RACOM and RACOM are right for our partners. Over a number of years we have developed an extensive partner network and can proudly say we are represented in over 90% of the countries that make up the Americas. These partners are serviced by six RACOM staff members supporting the North and South American markets. Five of these colleagues serve the Commercial needs of the market while the 6^th is a specialist Support Engineer based in Lima, Peru.

Many of our customers have made the trip to our HQ in Czech Republic for product training and to visit our facility. Our own Technical Support team is no stranger to the Americas having made a number of trips to deliver onsite training for new applications we have supported. And now that we have a specialist Support engineer based in Peru, we are in a position to offer even higher levels of support in the field, to our partners and end-users throughout the region.

Since releasing our latest products over the last eighteen months, RACOM has successfully gained homologation with all the key authorities, ensuring our products meet all standards required to be used in the Americas and Canada. This ensures the market has full access to the latest state-of-the-art, best-in-class technology. Your regional Sales manager will be able to advise details of accreditations specific to your country.

RipEX’s reputation for reliability, performance and robustness is proving well founded as is the ability to operate over long distances and using low power options in many applications.

Our RAy microwave radios are attracting ever increasing levels of interest and customer benefits such as Asymmetric channels, Resistance to interference and ease of installation and management make them the optimal solution in many situations.

RACOM specialized Migration and Hybrid solutions have also been helping end users upgrade their networks and provide optimal solutions for now and in to the future.

In Mexico, the state owned electric utility company operates the largest RipEX network in the world and our Radio modems are also operating effectively in SCADA networks for other utility companies in smaller applications throughout the continents. Our products support flood protection systems in the Amazon basin and in the Andes Mountains and provide exceptional capacity for data transmissions in applications underground.

As we continue to develop a deeper understanding of the needs of the local markets throughout the Americas, now and for the future, we can confidently say the Americas will continue to be an extremely important market for RACOM.

Please contact us for more information about our products or how best to meet specific requirements in your area of operation.

UTC America Latina – POSTPONED!

New proposed dates:
2nd – 4th September 2020
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Windsor Barra Hotel

ROCC 2020 – POSTPONED!

March 18 – 20, 2020
Hotel Palacio Mundo Imperial, Acapulco
Acapulco, Mexico
Meet us at the Solstand Booth

Since its launch in 2004 Facebook has helped change the way we communicate forever and RACOM are climbing aboard! You just need to look at some of the stats to understand why!

• There are 745 million daily mobile users of Facebook
• Facebook is adding 8 new users every second
• People share 1.3 million pieces of content on Facebook every minute of every day
• 66% of all millennials (15-34 year olds) use Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/racom.eu/

On the RACOM Facebook page you will get the Fastest RACOM news, Informal inside information and other things that matter.

We do believe you will follow us on Facebook to stay in touch with RACOM community, provide feedback and tell us what matters to you.

We will be glad to meet you on Facebook!

MUM Europe 2020 Prague – POSTPONED!

March 26 – 27, 2020
O2 universum, Prague, Czech Republic
O2 universum, Ceskomoravska 2345/17, 190 00 Praha 9-Liben

It is common to have RACOM Radio modems and Cellular routers, combining in Hybrid networks to provide solutions.

To see solutions that use RAy Microwave links and RipEX Radio modems combining to provide a solution is not so common. However, this is exactly what happened recently at the Youth Winter Olympics in Czech.

As we have documented in the past, RipEX is often used to transmit split times to race control at outdoor sports events such as cross-country races and was again chosen to provide this function for all the skiing races at the Youth Winter Olympics. The transmitted times were displayed on central scoreboards and also shared with Czech Television, the broadcaster covering the event, to be used in their live transmission of coverage of the races.

A RAy link was used for connection from the transmission truck to provide a live TV stream of the different events over 3 km, allowing the Youth World Cup to be beamed internationally.

This solution serves to show the versatility of RACOM products and how they can be used to provide optimal solutions for customers, even in the most unlikely of settings.

We are very grateful to our partners for the important role they play in our continued success and as ever, a huge thank you to everyone for promoting our products.

RACOM works hard to develop strong relationships with partners and is known for its unique support mechanisms. We are also happy to attend events to support partners whenever possible and further develop relationships.

All our support materials are developed with partners in mind. Most recently, voice overs and product overviews have been published to complement product videos, highlighting key benefits our products offer the market. New Hybrid network and Data speed info sheets have also been produced in response to market demand.

In 2019 we have expanded our international footprint appointing new partners. A new Sales manager has been appointed to cover Russia and the surrounding region, based out of Moscow. An additional Sales manager has been appointed in Peru to provide further support in South and Central America and a Support Engineer has also been appointed to cover the LATAM region.

Of course, none of what we do is important unless the effort can be converted into sales. Again, our partners have excelled, winning major projects and securing sizeable orders for our products across the world.

In 2019 we have had success in UK for a primary Scada Network for a major utility company comprising a few hundreds of RipEX2 and M!DGE2 units in a hybrid network; an excellent example of design cooperation between partner, end user and Support team from RACOM. Also of special note is a unique project we are involved in on the Orkney Islands in Northern United Kingdom. RAy is being used to provide backhaul links for 5G tests that are ongoing. We have had big wins in Mexico with over 2000 RipEX units, a large expansion of a M!DGE network in Vietnam with an few hundreds units to be added and our long lasting relationship with Czech police has resulted in orders of over 3000 RipEX units. The list of other success stories is simply too long to list here.

Meanwhile our Sales managers are busy supporting partners in live tenders around the world and have every confidence many of these will be converted into orders in 2020.