ALVO1.9
ALVO1.9
ALVO1.9 / Disaster
Connect a satellite phone to ReaCom ALVO1.9 with a single cable. The line that used to reach whoever was holding the handset is shared instead — one unit per post, across the operations centre, the evacuation centre and the field. Up to 10 units per group, 26 when linked. No radio licence, and no qualification to operate it.
01 — Video
From the moment mobile phones go out of service, to a voice reaching the whole team through one cable. Japanese audio with Japanese subtitles.
Explainer — 80 sec / Japanese subtitles
One satellite line, shared between the operations room and the team on the ground. Just the mechanism.
Watch on YouTube ↗
Scenes in the video are illustrative. Real conditions and results vary with the site.
The rest of our video is collected on the
video page.
02 — Problem
The equipment is there. What stops the work is that a team cannot share it.
01
A mobile phone only carries a voice because a mast in the neighbourhood carries it first. When a major disaster takes out that mast, neither calls nor messages arrive, however intact the handset is. If the outage runs long, the mast’s own backup power runs out too.
02
A satellite link routes through the sky, which makes it resilient, and many authorities already hold one at headquarters and at branch offices. But only whoever is holding the handset is in the conversation. Carry it into an evacuation centre and the voice still reaches exactly one person.
03
An instruction taken at the reception desk has to be carried on foot to the supply store and to the area for people needing assistance. It takes time, and things get dropped. In a centre run by a handful of staff, those few minutes delay a decision.
03 — Solution
Connect the earphone jack on the satellite phone to the USB-C port on the ALVO with a single cable. From there the ALVO units link to each other over the air, and everyone in the group hears the same voice at the same time. No special rigging, and no engineer on site.
04 — How it works
There is exactly one wired connection — satellite phone to ALVO. Headsets, and the ALVO units themselves, are all wireless.
The diagram scrolls sideways.
An illustration of the connection. The satellite phone is supplied separately.
Connector shapes and specifications differ between models, so please confirm compatibility in advance.
Step 1
Join the earphone jack on the satellite phone to the USB-C port on the ALVO Master with a single cable.
Step 2
Give an ALVO and a headset to each person. The headsets pair over Bluetooth.
Step 3
The voice on the satellite line reaches the whole group, and the field can answer back — mid-sentence if it matters.
05 — Deployment
The satellite phone is only involved when a cut-off location has to reach headquarters. Where the staff on the spot simply need to reach each other — inside an evacuation centre, for instance — the ALVO units are enough on their own.
01
When the network is thinning and the forward post has to reach headquarters, its ALVO goes on the satellite phone. Instructions from headquarters arrive with everyone holding an ALVO at the same time. Nobody has to put a handset down and repeat what was said.
02
Inside a gymnasium or a school building, the ALVO units link to each other and nothing else is required — no line contract, no satellite phone. One unit each at reception, the supply store, the area for people needing assistance and the first-aid point, and those five people hear the same voice at once.
03
Damage assessment surveys, road clearance, river patrols, water distribution points, supply staging areas, temporary debris storage. Where crews work as a team, hands-free simultaneous talk earns its place. Far from headquarters, the team leader’s unit goes on the satellite phone and relays.
Count posts, not people.
ALVO1.9 allows 10 units per group (units that talk and units that only listen, combined). Even with groups linked through a relay base it reaches 3 groups and 26 units — which is not a fit for handing a unit to everyone in a shelter. The basic design is one unit per post — reception, supplies, the area for people needing assistance — connecting the people responsible for each.
Coverage is a radius of tens to a few hundred metres. It is not a substitute for wide-area radio covering a whole municipality. Reach varies with building structure, obstructions and how the units are placed.
06 — Positioning
Municipal disaster radio and satellite phones each have a job. What ALVO fills in is the last few dozen metres, after those systems have delivered.
| What you have | What it is good at | Where it stops | Relationship to ALVO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public-address disaster radio |
Alerting residents all at once (outdoor loudspeakers, household receivers) | One-way. Cannot carry a conversation between staff | A different job, so it stays exactly as it is |
| Mobile disaster radio |
Two-way between headquarters and vehicles or portable stations | Transmissions queue. Requires a station licence and maintenance budget. Coverage ends when you leave the vehicle | ALVO fills in the site itself, once people are out of the vehicle |
| Satellite phone | Connects even when ground infrastructure is gone | Only whoever holds the handset is in the conversation | One cable turns that single line into a line the team shares |
| Mobile phone MCA, IP radio |
Easy to live with as an everyday channel | Depends on masts and relay stations. Vulnerable to congestion and power cuts | Used alongside, for as long as it works |
| ReaCom ALVO1.9 |
Up to 10 units in a group talking at once, cutting in freely. No licence, no qualification | No wide-area coverage. A radius of tens to a few hundred metres. 10 units per group (up to 26 when linked) | Covers the last few dozen metres, after the above have delivered |
Indicative of general tendencies. Actual performance and licensing requirements vary with the model and the installation. Tell us what you currently operate and we will check compatibility with it individually.
07 — Benefits
Nothing queues. “Stop” can be said the moment it needs saying. Those few seconds are the margin.
ENC 2.0 noise cancellation processes the surrounding noise in real time and supports an intelligible call.
AES-256 encryption, designed with the level of security expected of professional use.
Nothing to register, and nobody to certify. When the post changes hands, no course is required either.
*1 Wiring Masters together with a relay cable reaches 18 units. The unit acting as the relay cannot be used for
talking, so the number of people able to speak drops accordingly — 3 groups of 10 is 30 units,
4 of which act as relays, so 26 can talk at once. Three groups and 26 units is the
largest configuration we support; latency grows with every group added.
*2 Measured in open line of sight. 800m is the total distance between two Remotes with the Master in between
(approx. 400m horizontal on each side).
Full specifications are on the specification page.
08 — Phase Free
Equipment bought for emergencies sits unused in a store room, and the battery is flat on the day it is needed. Used in everyday work, that never happens — and the staff operating it already know how.
Every day
Reception and front-of-house, polling and vote counting, running a city festival or a road race, street cleaning and waste collection, managing schools and sports halls, water and road maintenance.
In an emergency
Hand them out as usual, and move one onto the satellite phone if the situation calls for it. Even staff drafted in without training can start using it on the spot.
And on the budget side.
Held purely as emergency stock, the purchase sits entirely with the disaster-management budget. Shared with the departments that use it day to day, the same spend covers both everyday efficiency and readiness. Once it is clear which departments use it and how, the unit count and configuration follow.
09 — Consultations
These are the problems crisis-management and disaster-prevention teams describe to us. If one of them sounds familiar, that is a good place to start the conversation.
The satellite phones we deployed aren’t earning their keep. They sit at headquarters and the branch offices, but one handset means one person, and even in drills we stall at passing it around
We can’t reach each other inside the evacuation centre. Once staff split between reception, the supply store and the area for people needing assistance, neither voices nor mobiles get through, so we run messages on foot
We’re revising the regional disaster management plan and working through the communications section. We want to be clear about the gap between municipal radio and the satellite phone, and how to fill it
We want to try it in a drill before deciding. Use it in this year’s exercise, and put it in next year’s budget request if it holds up
It has to survive staff rotation. Equipment that is hard to operate stops being used the moment the post changes hands
We run evacuation centres with voluntary organisations and neighbourhood associations. Whatever we hand to people outside the authority has to work in their hands immediately
We need to reach facility contractors too. Sports halls, community centres, school kitchens — we want their staff on the same channel
We are reviewing the communications in our business continuity plan. Hospitals, airports, plants and large facilities looking for something that congestion and power cuts don’t take out
10 — How to start
Nothing has to be deployed authority-wide at once. Many start with a drill or a single evacuation centre and carry the result into the following year’s budget request. We work to your financial-year timetable.
Step 1
A demo unit, in your hands. Check in your own building, or in a facility earmarked as a centre, whether it actually reaches.
Step 2
Ask us about a loan covering a full-scale drill or a tabletop exercise. How the staff involved react becomes the evidence.
Step 3
Material for the specification, configuration diagrams and a quotation. We will help set out how it sits beside existing equipment.
Step 4
Start with headquarters and one centre, and widen it in later years. Units can be added to an existing configuration.
Funding
Japanese public bodies procuring disaster communication equipment commonly draw on the emergency disaster-prevention and mitigation bond scheme, fire and disaster facility subsidies, or regional revitalisation grants.
Whether a given purchase qualifies depends on how the project is positioned within the regional disaster management plan, and requires discussion with the prefecture or the responsible ministry. We cannot state that a purchase will qualify. What we can do is prepare the material you need for that discussion.
Procurement
“How many units” and “where the Master sits” follow from the structure of the building and how the work is divided. Send us a floor plan or a list of your centres and we will propose a configuration and an indicative unit count.
We can also supply material for competitive quotations, and discuss unit-price contracts or procurement spanning financial years. Start by telling us what you currently hold.
11 — Satellite
ALVO1.9 is the equipment that shares a voice once it has arrived. Where there is no route to the outside world at all, a line has to be secured first — with a satellite phone, for example. The satellite phone itself is supplied separately.
Compatibility is checked model by model.
The condition is that the satellite phone has an earphone jack from which audio can be taken. Connector shapes and specifications differ between models, and we have not verified operation with every model. Tell us the model you hold, or are considering, and we will check it individually and come back to you. We are also happy to discuss procuring the satellite equipment itself.
12 — FAQ
Please note.
Nothing on this page guarantees that communication will be available during a disaster. The state of a satellite link or a radio link changes with weather, terrain, the surrounding environment and how the equipment is placed.
The satellite phone must be supplied separately, and connector shapes and specifications differ between models, so please confirm compatibility in advance. We have not verified operation with any particular model or carrier.
The funding schemes described here are general information and are not a promise that any particular project qualifies. Please confirm eligibility and procedure with your prefecture or the responsible ministry.
Send us a list of your centres or a floor plan and we will propose a configuration and an indicative count.
For compatibility with a satellite phone, tell us the model and we will check it individually.