Two-way radios in hotels: licences, channels and who carries one

In Türkiye, handheld radios that meet the technical criteria of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), such as PMR 446 units operating in 446.000–446.200 MHz at no more than 500 mW, need no radio licence. Any other handheld, fixed radio or repeater needs a BTK permit to install and use, granted for up to five years once the licence and usage fees are paid.

A housekeeping supervisor buys twelve handsets, hands them out before the season, and the hotel is now running a radio system nobody licensed, on channels nobody planned. Both problems are cheaper to fix before the first handset is charged than after. This article settles the licence question, shows the application file and the 2026 fees, and gives you a channel plan, a coverage test and an on-air discipline you can write on one page.

Who carries a radio in a hotel, and what for?#

Radios go to the people who move while they work: housekeeping, technical service, security, and the front desk whenever it is away from the desk. The test is whether a person needs to reach someone in under a minute without typing.

Housekeeping carries most of the traffic: room status, linen, minibar restocking and guest requests. Hands are full, so the handset needs an earpiece or a shoulder clip, not a screen. Technical service needs to be reachable in plant rooms, lift machine rooms and service corridors where phones often have no signal, and where a fault has to reach a person rather than a mailbox.

Security is the one team that should have a channel of its own: perimeter, car park, fire points and the night shift, where a message is often time-critical. The front desk is usually the dispatcher rather than a heavy carrier: it holds a handset to pass requests to housekeeping and technical service, and to call a manager. Seasonal and outdoor roles, such as pool, beach, valet and events, work where a phone sits in a pocket and a radio is clipped to a shirt.

The decision rule is one hand, one second, no reading. If the message needs a screen, a photo or a record, it is a phone or software job, not a radio job. The trade-off: every handset added is another person on air, and past a certain density the channel becomes unusable and staff start talking over each other.

Do hotel walkie-talkies need a licence?#

Some do not. Under BTK's regulation on radio equipment exempt from frequency assignment, radios that meet the published technical criteria need no radio licence, no permit to install and use, and no frequency assignment.

The exemption sits in Article 5(1) of the Regulation on Radio Equipment and Systems Exempt from Frequency Assignment (Resmî Gazete, 27 November 2018, No. 30608). It removes the radio licence, the installation and use permit and the frequency assignment, and nothing else: the exemption does not lift your other legal duties.

The best-known qualifying family is PMR 446. Under Article 16 of BTK's technical criteria (Board decision, 23 September 2022, No. 2022/İK-SYD/245), PMR 446 handhelds may be used in 446.000–446.200 MHz at no more than 500 mW e.r.p., with an integrated antenna only. Base stations and repeaters are excluded from that exemption. The moment a hotel adds an external antenna, a booster or a repeater, it has left the licence-free route.

Everything else, including business-band VHF/UHF handhelds, fixed radios and repeaters, needs a BTK permit to install and use. Before buying, ask the seller which technical criteria the device is declared against and get it in writing. A device that genuinely meets the criteria is the cheapest compliant route; a device that merely looks like one is not.

How do you apply for a radio licence, and what does it cost?#

You file a petition with BTK using its application form, with the address and coordinates of the installation site, a chamber or trade registry document and a signature circular; once the application is approved and the fees are paid, BTK grants a permit to install and use for up to five years.

The application file#

The file has five parts: the petition, the BTK application form, the address and coordinates of the installation site, a chamber of commerce or trade registry document, and a signature circular. Coordinates are not a formality. A rooftop repeater or a fixed radio is a site, and the site is what gets permitted.

The order matters: approval first, then the licence and usage fees. The permit follows payment, not the application.

Fees and renewal#

BTK's 2026 radio fee tariff sets the licence fee for land mobile radios (vehicle, portable or handheld) at 604.92 TL per device, 3,025.98 TL per repeater and 1,513.06 TL per fixed radio. For land VHF/UHF systems the annual usage fee is 302.86 TL per device for each simplex channel and 604.92 TL per repeater. These figures come from the BTK technical criteria, procedures and 2026 fee tariff documents (2026) (opens in a new tab).

For example, a resort licensing 30 handhelds on one simplex channel plus one repeater would budget 30 × 604.92 TL plus 3,025.98 TL in licence fees, and 30 × 302.86 TL plus 604.92 TL in annual usage: roughly 30,864 TL in the first year. The figures are illustrative arithmetic on the 2026 tariff, not a quote.

Renewal is the part hotels forget. If no extension is requested before the permit expires, BTK cancels the permit and the licence without notice. The signature circular decides who signs for the operating company. Confirm the signatory and the current tariff with your adviser before you budget.

How should channels be planned by department?#

Give each department its own channel, keep one channel that everyone monitors for emergencies, and write the whole plan on one page posted at the desk and in the workshop.

Channel 1 is the emergency and all-call channel: everyone monitors it, nobody chats on it. The moment it carries routine traffic, it stops working as an emergency channel. Then give one channel per function: housekeeping, technical service, security, F&B and events, front desk and management. A department that shares a channel with another department hears traffic it cannot act on.

This layout is an example, not a standard; the number of channels depends on the licensed system.

Call names should be role plus location, not personal names: "housekeeping 4 to technical, third floor, bathroom leak" tells everyone who is speaking, where, and what is needed. Keep transmissions to four parts: who you are, where you are, what you need, done. Anything longer moves to the phone.

Program the plan into the handsets, lock the keypad and label each device with its channel and its owner, so a lost handset can be traced to a shift. Review the plan when the season changes, because pool, beach and valet roles appear and disappear and the channel map drifts with them.

Why do radios go quiet in basements and beach blocks, and when do you need a repeater?#

Range is set by concrete, metal, terrain and the power limit of the handset, so a radio that works in the lobby can be silent in the plant room. A repeater on a licensed frequency is the usual fix for a large resort.

A 500 mW PMR 446 handset is a short-range tool. It suits one building and a garden; it does not cover a large resort with separate blocks, a beach and an underground service level. Antenna placement usually matters more than power: a rooftop antenna with clear line of sight beats a stronger handset held against a concrete wall.

A repeater does not sit inside the licence-free exemption. It needs a licensed frequency, its own licence fee and its own place in the annual usage fee. Radio planning and hotel network design: separating guests, staff, payments and devices should be done together, because both want the same risers, cupboards and roof space, and cabling one after the other is cheaper than cabling twice. Write the walk test result into the same document as the channel plan, so the coverage gaps are known before an incident, not during one.

What do radios do when the internet or the phone system fails?#

A radio system keeps working when the internet, the Wi-Fi and the cloud phone system are down, which is why it belongs in the outage plan next to the generator.

Radios do not travel over the hotel's network, so an internet outage, a failed switch or a cloud telephony failure does not take them out. What does take them out is a flat battery. Set a charging station per shift, keep spare batteries, and log a radio check at every handover.

Keep a printed channel card and a printed call list in the outage folder, because the plan is useless if it lives only on a screen that is down. Radios are how the front desk tells housekeeping to stop assigning rooms when the property management system is unreachable, and how the team coordinates a manual arrival list. During a power cut the repeater needs to be on the essential circuit, or it goes silent while the handsets are still fully charged. Test the radio plan in the same drill as the generator, not in a separate exercise, so the two plans are rehearsed together. The same thinking sits behind when the internet goes down: a front desk checklist for cloud-based hotels and power cut at the hotel: a checklist for the first hour and the generator.

What should never be said on an open channel?#

Anything that identifies a guest, a payment or a security weakness stays off the air, because anyone within range with a receiver can hear it and the hotel cannot know who is listening.

Guest names and room numbers are the most common leak. Prefer location over identity: "the departure on the third floor" rather than a name and a room. Never read out card numbers, identity numbers, phone numbers or bill amounts; a radio transmission is not a private line. Security movements, key control, safe codes and cash transfers need a code plan or the phone, not an open channel.

Medical information is personal data. Describe the need, not the diagnosis: "an ambulance at the staff entrance" is enough. Use earpieces in guest areas, partly for discretion and partly for noise: a lobby full of radio chatter is a worse lobby. The legal frame is general: personal data rules apply to what is spoken as much as to what is written, and the details of your own case belong with your adviser, as covered in KVKK for hotels: notices, consent, staff access and retention. Brief new staff on these rules in their first week, and print them on the same one-page channel plan as the channel map.

What to do next#

Before you buy a single handset, write the one-page plan: who carries a radio, which channel each department uses, and what is never said on air. Then settle the licence question with the seller in writing, because the device's technical criteria decide whether you need a BTK permit at all, and if you do, the permit's expiry date belongs in the same calendar as your fire and lift inspections. Licence status decides the hardware, the channel plan decides the discipline, and the outage plan decides whether the radios are actually charged when the network fails.