COMPARISON

Sinkaos vs radio and paper: what each does best in field operations

Radio and a whiteboard have run operations for decades, and radio is still the fastest way to say “stop”. Below we go through where Sinkaos adds something and where it does not. Most of the time the honest answer is to use them together.

Last checked 2026-10-23

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STRENGTHS

Radio covers the moment and paper the plan, but the picture in between gets lost.

Two-way radio reaches everyone on the channel at once, works with gloves on and needs no mobile network. In Great Britain the emergency services run on Airwave, a dedicated TETRA network that, according to the Home Office, serves more than 300,000 frontline users in police, fire and ambulance services from handsets, vehicles, aircraft and around 200 control rooms. The Home Office is replacing it with the 4G-based Emergency Services Network (ESN), a programme that has run years late, so Airwave stays in service meanwhile. Event, security and volunteer teams more often use Ofcom-licensed business radio or licence-exempt PMR446 handhelds.

Paper, maps and whiteboards need no batteries and no training. A command post with a printed map and magnets is quick to set up and everyone understands it.

What neither keeps well is the shared, current picture: who is where right now, which incident is still open, who owns which task, and what happened at 14:20. Sinkaos holds exactly that, on a map every member sees, and keeps working without signal. It works alongside radio and does not replace it.

TASK BY TASK

Sinkaos, radio and paper compared

Radio here means voice radio in general, from licence-free handhelds to professional networks; features differ between systems.

	SINKAOS	RADIO	PAPER AND WHITEBOARD
Saying “stop” to everyone now	Alerts and announcements, but no push-to-talk	Fastest: one press, everyone hears	No
Working without the mobile network	Maps, plan and tasks on the phone; reports wait in a queue; a local field node runs over Wi-Fi with no internet	Yes, on its own network or radio to radio	Needs no network at all
Who is where	Live positions on one map, last known position when signal drops	Asked by voice; some networks send vehicle positions to control	Magnets on a board, as current as the last call
Written record of what happened	Every report, task and change with its time	Only if traffic is recorded, and hard to search	If someone writes it down
Two times for every report	When it happened and when it became known, kept apart	No	Only if noted by hand
Photos from the field	Attached to the report with position and time	No	No
Tasks and who owns them	Assigned, acknowledged, tracked on the map	Given by voice, confirmed by voice	Listed on the board
A coordinator joining late	Reads the timeline and the map	Hears only what is said from now on	Reads the board, if it is up to date
Partners from another organisation	Guest access by link or QR, ends with the operation	Need a compatible set and the right channel	Need to be in the room
Power	Phones need charging; tracking profiles save battery	Batteries and chargers	None
Encryption	Messages and files end to end; records in transit and at rest	Depends on the system; Airwave is a secure network built for the emergency services	Whoever sees the board can read it
Debrief afterwards	Replay, plan versus actual, after-action package	Memory and any recordings	Photos of the board and notes
Getting started	Install the app, join by link or QR code	Licence-exempt PMR446 sets, an Ofcom business radio licence, or access to a professional network	A pen

Radio facts come from the Home Office description of Airwave and ESN, the CMA investigation into the Airwave network and Ofcom’s licence exemption rules, linked below. Sinkaos is not a certified emergency dispatch or public warning system.

SPLITTING THE WORK

How to split the work between radio, paper and Sinkaos

Keep radio for

Urgent voice traffic: stop, evacuate, man down, short orders under pressure, where no phone screen beats a press-to-talk button.

Keep paper for

A fallback when every battery is flat, and a printed briefing sheet people can hold. A laminated map in the vehicle is still worth carrying.

Use Sinkaos for

Everything that has to be remembered: positions, incidents, tasks, photos and the timeline. It frees the radio channel from “where are you?” calls. See team location sharing.

Use Sinkaos for

Handover and debrief. The next shift reads the timeline instead of a crumpled log, and the after-action review starts from the record.

Radio alone is enough when

The operation is short, small and in one place, and nobody needs a record afterwards.

BEFORE YOU SWITCH

Questions about moving from radio and paper

Does Sinkaos replace our radios?

No. Radio stays the fastest way to give an urgent order. Sinkaos keeps what a radio call cannot: where people are, the records and photos, and a timeline you can read later.

What if the mobile network is down?

Each phone carries a mission pack with maps, plan, tasks and team list. Reports are saved and sent when a link appears. For areas with no internet at all, a small field node on a laptop serves phones over local Wi-Fi. Details on deployment.

Our people are not tech-savvy. Is that a problem?

The field app keeps operations, map, alerts and tasks one tap away, and reporting an incident takes a few taps. Run it first in an exercise, next to the radio you already use.

Can the command post still use a big paper map?

Yes. Many will keep it. The operator view in a browser shows the same picture as the phones, so the paper map can be updated from it.

Can Sinkaos talk to Airwave?

No. Sinkaos is a tool for an organisation’s own team and has no connection to Airwave or ESN. It is not a certified emergency dispatch system and does not replace 999 or official warning channels such as Emergency Alerts. Our guide to how emergency services and authorities coordinate explains how the system is organised.