How it works
The plan starts from the hours a full charge really gives your radios, less the reserve: 10 hours with a 20% reserve is 8 hours of planned use. A 12-hour shift then takes 2 full charges per radio, with the swap at hour 8. Without a swappable battery, the second charge is a charged spare radio.
The charger plan is a time line in 5-minute steps over three days. A battery goes to a free charger slot when it runs out or when the shift ends, and is full again after the charging time. A shortage is a radio with no full battery at any moment from the second day on, and the box tries the fewest extra batteries or slots that close it.
Makers' hours are measured on a duty cycle: 5% talking, 5% listening and 90% standby is the common one, used by Hytera and by Motorola for the TLK 110's 18 hours.12 Hytera rates the PNC360S on 10-10-80, a busier cycle once required for police radios, so the hours of different makers do not compare.34 That is why the box asks for the time you see.
Batteries give less in the cold and come back when warm again; Motorola puts lithium-ion cells at 300–500 charges before they fall to 80% of their capacity, and Hytera Canada at about 18 to 24 months of radio use.156 A higher reserve covers both. Prices of batteries and chargers: cost calculator.
