Agriculture
Two-way radios for farms, ranches and growers
Fields, barns, the packing shed and the road to the elevator are miles apart. Conventional radios stop at the tree line; phones ring and go to voicemail. We put the whole operation on one Managed Zello network that works wherever there is cell service, and we look after it through the season.
Short answer
Will radios reach across the whole farm?
Yes, if there is cellular coverage where your people work. Our radios run Zello on a multi-carrier SIM rather than a repeater on the barn roof, so a tractor two sections over, the truck on the county road and the office all hear the same call. We check coverage against your actual field addresses before you commit to anything.
The problem
What gets in the way
Farm work is spread thin over a lot of ground. A crew in the far field cannot hear a conventional radio from the yard, and a repeater tall enough to fix that costs more than the radios. Phones fill the gap badly: gloves, engine noise and a thirty-second dial-and-ring cycle mean most calls do not get answered. During harvest, when a combine goes down or a truck is needed at the wrong end of the section, those minutes add up. Seasonal crews make it worse, because whatever system you run has to be learnable in an afternoon.
How we set it up
How the channels are set up
We build the Zello channels around how the operation actually runs: a field-operations channel for tractors, combines and grain carts; a hauling channel for trucks running to the elevator or the packing house; a yard-and-barn channel for the shop, livestock and irrigation; and an all-call for the owner or manager. Vehicle-mounted units go in the cab so nothing has to be charged or found, handhelds go to crew leads, and the office runs the Zello Work app on its PC with everyone on a live map. Seasonal workers are added from a user template and removed remotely, so a new crew is on the right channel the morning they start. Where the crew and the managers speak different languages, Managed Zello Plus adds Translations.
Typical use cases
Where it gets used day to day
Harvest coordination between combines, grain carts and trucks without anyone stopping to make a call. Irrigation and pivot checks reported from the field instead of after the drive back. Livestock moves and veterinary calls across a ranch. Packing-shed and cold-store teams coordinating with the trucks on the road. A manager seeing on the map which crew is closest when a machine breaks down. Custom harvesters and spray contractors keeping their fleet on one channel across three counties.
Recommended solution
What we would recommend
Vehicle radios in every cab and rugged handhelds for crew leads suit most farms: the Telox M3 draws from tractor or truck power, and the Telox TE320 handheld shrugs off dust, rain and drops. Operations that already use phones for spray records or field mapping can run Zello on a Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro or a rugged Sonim instead. Managed Zello Core covers most farms, live location included; choose Plus if the crew needs Translations. We start by checking cellular coverage across your fields, because that decides everything else.
Questions
Questions growers ask us
What farm and ranch operators want to know before putting radios in the cabs.
Is there coverage in the middle of a section, not just by the road?
Usually, but not always, and we do not guess. Send us the field addresses or drop pins on the parcels and we check supported coverage across all three national networks before quoting. Where a low spot or a treeline is known to be weak, we say so, and our multi-carrier SIM can often use a stronger network in that area.
What happens in the tractor? Nobody is going to charge a handheld.
Nobody has to. The Telox M3 mounts in the cab, runs on 12 to 24 V vehicle power and uses a palm microphone, so it is always on when the machine is. Handhelds are only for people who are on foot.
Can we add crew for harvest and drop them afterwards?
Yes. Managed Zello is billed per user per month with no minimum, so a seasonal crew can be added for the weeks you need them. We add and remove users remotely; nothing has to be reprogrammed.
Will dust, rain and being dropped off a trailer kill them?
The Telox TE320 is sealed to IP68 against dust and immersion and rated for a 1.5-meter drop, and it runs from -4°F to 140°F. If a radio does fail, we retire it remotely and set up the replacement with Zello and the right channels as part of the managed service.
Do we need an FCC license or a tower?
No. Conventional farm radio systems often need a licensed frequency and a repeater on a tall structure. Ours run over the cellular networks, which already hold the licenses, so there is nothing to file and nothing to build.
Related
A typical farm setup
Most operations put the Telox M3 in every tractor and truck cab, give crew leads the Telox TE320, and run Zello on the farm office PC, or a Zello Dispatch Hub seat for busy harvest desks. Real-time location, included in Managed Zello Core, shows which crew is closest when something breaks down.
If you already run conventional radios in the yard, radio interoperability connects them. Before trusting a carrier map for a rural operation, read what nationwide coverage actually means.
Get started
Tell us how your team works today
Send us your field and yard addresses and how the crew talks today. We will come back with coverage, hardware and pricing in one document.