Why warehouses are UHF territory
Everything a warehouse is made of blocks radio: steel racking in rows, steel cladding on the walls, steel mezzanine decks overhead, and — the part people forget — the stock itself, which on full pallets of anything dense (liquids, paper, tins) absorbs signal like a sponge. The physics answer is UHF: its shorter wavelengths thread through and around steelwork far better than VHF or anything else on offer, which is why the trade fits UHF in warehouses almost without exception. Power is the other half. A licence-free PMR446 handset is capped at 0.5 W and typically drops out a few aisles deep or the moment someone goes up to the mezzanine; a licensed handset at 4–5 W drives through the same building. Business-grade PMR446 has one honest warehouse niche — a small single-room unit with light use — but any operation with real racking depth, a mezzanine or a yard is describing licensed UHF. And note the trap with range claims: the "10 km" on the box was measured across open ground, a place your warehouse resembles not at all.
Coverage, mezzanines and repeaters
Before buying anything, walk the building with a demo pair and test the real dead spots — the trade habit worth copying is testing from the worst corner, not the best: far corner of the racking to the office, mezzanine to goods-in, cold store (door shut) to the yard. Mezzanines deserve special suspicion: a steel deck is a horizontal wall, and a site that covers fine on the ground floor can be patchy one level up where the pickers actually work. If a good 4–5 W licensed handset still can't hold the worst paths, the answer is a repeater — a fixed unit mounted high in the shed that re-broadcasts every call at full power, restoring whole-site coverage including yard and cold store. One repeater sorts almost any single UK warehouse. Two things a repeater does not fix: it can't run on licence-free channels (no PMR446 repeaters — another reason the default is licensed), and it can't join two sites five miles apart. Multi-depot operations wanting one system across sites and vehicles have left conventional radio's territory — that's the network radio conversation.
The audio and safety spec
Hear it over the FLT fleet
Warehouse noise is constant rather than loud — trucks, conveyors, roller doors — and it eats open-speaker audio. Digital (DMR) handsets hold voice intelligibility in that noise markedly better than analogue, and every radio needs a volume ceiling that actually reaches over a reversing alarm.
Earpiece or headset, by role
Earpieces with an inline mic for pickers and goods-in — discreet, hands stay free for handballing. FLT drivers are different: a single-ear headset or a remote speaker mic clipped high, so an instruction lands without the driver taking a hand off the controls, and one ear always stays open for the horn.
Man-down and lone-worker
A tilt sensor that raises the alarm if a radio stays horizontal (man-down), and timed check-ins that alarm when missed (lone-worker). Specify them for yard staff, night shifts, cold-store work and anyone in the far aisles alone — they're standard options on business handsets and cost little at purchase, everything retrofitted.
Built for the shift
Twelve-hour batteries, drop-in multi-chargers at the office and goods-in, and an IP-rated chassis for yard rain and washdowns. Cold stores add a real constraint: batteries fade fast below freezing, so cold-store radios need high-capacity packs and a warm charging home between trips in.
One system, whole operation
The productivity win isn't the radio, it's the joined-up operation: goods-in flags a delivery, the office allocates the door, an FLT driver acknowledges, a picker reroutes — four teams, one conversation, nobody walking the length of the shed to find someone. Plan it like this: one working channel for the floor (pickers, goods-in, FLT) so the whole flow hears the whole flow, and a second channel for office and management traffic that would otherwise clutter the floor. Radios go to roles: every FLT driver, goods-in, the pickers' team leaders (not necessarily every picker), yard, office and shift managers — most single sheds land between 8 and 20 handsets, plus spares on charge. On a big shared estate, private licensed channels also mean the neighbouring 3PL's traffic never bleeds into yours, which on shared PMR446 channels it eventually will.
The licence economics
Run the arithmetic once and the "save the licence fee" argument dies. An Ofcom Simple UK Light licence is around £75 for five years — £15 a year for the whole business, not per radio. Across a 12-handset fleet that's roughly 10p per radio per month, and what it buys is the difference between a system and a gadget: 4–5 W of power that actually covers the building, private channels, and the option of a repeater. Compare the false economy: consumer licence-free sets at £30–£60 a pair that won't reach the mezzanine, get replaced within a year of warehouse life, and put your goods-in calls on the same public channel as every other unit on the estate. Business-grade licensed handsets cost more per unit up front, but they're built for years of shift work — over a three-year horizon the licensed route is almost always the cheaper system per working day, before you count a single saved walk across the shed. The full decision framework, with costs for all three routes, is in the business buying guide.
Quick answers
What works best in a warehouse?
Licensed UHF at 4–5 W — UHF threads through racking, mezzanines and stock where licence-free power drops out two aisles in. Business-grade PMR446 suits only a genuinely small single-room unit.
Do we need a licence?
Not for PMR446, but most working warehouses move to licensed frequencies. The Simple UK Light licence is about £75 for five years for the whole business — pennies per radio per month.
What are man-down and lone-worker?
Man-down alarms automatically if a radio stays horizontal or motionless; lone-worker alarms when a timed check-in is missed. Specify both for yards, cold stores and night shifts.
When do we need a repeater?
When one building beats handheld coverage — high-bay sheds, dense mezzanines, cold stores, big yards. One repeater mounted high covers almost any single UK warehouse; multiple sites need network radio instead.