Our story
RACOM was founded before the Czech Velvet Revolution in 1989 by four radio amateurs with a vision to sell ham equipment they had designed themselves to other radio amateurs. The original Rádio cooperative was transformed into RACOM in 1990. As the company grew, the radio amateur market became too small for it, so in 1991 it plunged into wireless data communications which has turned out to be an excellent strategic decision.
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This was the year when two young Czech radio-amateurs met: Jiří Hruška, OK2MMW and Martin Lácha, OK2DFW. In the years that followed they pursued their shared hobby together. In socialist Czechoslovakia it was almost impossible to buy professionally made equipment, so as electrical engineering students they made their radios themselves. This taught them not only to understand RF technologies, but to cope with every problem, since at that time if you wanted anything you had to rely on the good-old ‘make-do and mend’ approach.
Thanks to their hard work and enthusiasm they were soon ably competing in the discipline at the highest levels, representing Czechoslovakia in radio-amateur competitions abroad and, together with other friends, placing among the winners in HF contests.
The Rádio Cooperative
In 1989 Czechoslovakia opened up to allowing small businesses outside the state-owned enterprises, so it was now feasible to make devices for radio-amateurs on a ‘business’ basis. Jiří and Martin and their two colleagues founded a production cooperative Rádio in May 1989 and started making their bespoke R2CW 144 MHz transceiver, which they later started daringly selling to ‘capitalist’ countries abroad. Incidentally, the R2CW is still being used among radio-amateurs today and RACOM does provide maintenance for it if needed.
Just as some state-bureaucratic clouds began to gather over the Rádio Cooperative, threatening its future, the November Velvet Revolution uprising came, changing everything.
RACOM
After the change of regime, establishing ‘standard’ types of companies became an option, so it was no longer necessary to keep going under the unsatisfactory socialist-style cooperative ownership model. Jiří and Martin and their key colleagues from the Rádio Cooperative founded RACOM a.s. in 1990, later transformed into RACOM s.r.o.
The radio-amateur market was soon too small for RACOM, and the company started producing radio devices for professional use. The crucial moment was the decision to specialize in wireless data transmission and launching the first radio modem on the market in 1991.
30 years on
Radio modems for SCADA networks have proven to be the right way forward. Jiří and Martin gathered together a team of equally enthusiastic colleagues, jointly developing and producing more and more progressive generations of radio modems, winning ever bigger orders; these became their stepping stones on a business quest out into the wide world.
Today, our team proudly features among market leaders and trend-setters and our radio modems are used in more than 130 countries worldwide.
In response to the advent of mobile networks for similar applications in 2005, we added mobile routers to our radio modems.
In 2009, we expanded into another radio data transmission domain – microwave links. Despite the tough competition, we are steadily becoming a major global player in this market.
2024
On April 1, 2024, Jiří and Martin handed over the company’s management responsibilities to a new generation, trusting that their successors will lead RACOM to further success.
RACOM remains owned by the founders’ families and employees. We are still a family-type company with our own development and production. We strive for maximum self-sufficiency, with our own SMT lines for PCB assembly and our own mechanical workshop. Around 150 people work at RACOM, our turnover is about 15 million EUR, and we continue to grow steadily.
Throughout our entire history, we have never made a loss. Profits are always reinvested into further development, especially into new product design.
A New Challenge
Our products have always been at the forefront of technology, so it was only natural that they found their way into the defence sector. At the same time, we know that technically our products can be improved even further, even though most of our customers in critical infrastructure do not require such high performance. However, if we want to keep developing our skills and knowledge and continue advancing the technical level of our products, the defence sector is the natural direction to take.
In 2026, we launched a new product line of embedded radio modems designed primarily for all types of unmanned vehicles. As always, we put into them what has driven us from the very beginning – top technical performance, precision, reliability, and the joy of innovation.