Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Lebanon, PA Commissioners OK $10.4M radio upgrade

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 15:41:38 -0500

Lebanon, PA Commissioners OK $10.4M radio upgrade

By JOHN LATIMER

Staff Writer

Lebanon County's Emergency
Management Agency dispatchers will soon
be using a new system to communicate
with emergency responders.

The county commissioners yesterday gave
their unanimous approval to a $10.4
million plan to modernize the current
system. Money for the project, which was
first proposed about 21 months ago, was
appropriated earlier this year when the
commissioners issued a $16 million bond.

Work on converting to the new system will begin after
contracts are signed next month and will take about a year
to complete, said county EMA Director Daniel Kauffman.

"We should be able to go live by 2005," he told the
commissioners.

The system will equip police, firefighters, fire police and
medical technicians with upgraded portable and mobile radios
for wireless communication with dispatchers and each other
on a mid-frequency UHF band that will be more reliable and
clearer than the current, low-frequency system, said
communications consultant Fred Short. The system will also
include pagers that provide written messages, eliminating
the need for unreliable voice pagers

Communications will travel between seven cell-phone tower
sites located throughout the county that will provide 95
percent coverage, including inside buildings, said Short.

The county already owns two cell towers and should be able
to arrange space on five others at no cost or reduced rent,
he said. The system will also be able to communicate with
counties like Lancaster that use different systems, said Short.

The county's emergency responders are in favor of the
system, said Kauffman.

"I've gotten very little negative feedback in the past couple of
months about this," he said. "I think everybody has to
realize, too -- and I'm speaking police, fire and EMS -- a lot of
their radio equipment is going to be obsolete in another 10
years."

The equipment will be purchased by the county from M/A-Com
Wireless Systems, a unit of Tyco Electronics. Purchase price
for the equipment will be set using a state contract, said
county administrator Jamie Wolgemuth.

M/A-Com has had trouble implementing a system called Open
Sky that was purchased by the state, but the system
Lebanon County will be purchasing uses a different
technology called EDACS -- Enhanced Digital Access
Communications Systems -- that has a much better track
record, said Short.

Other suppliers were considered, including Motorola, but
M/A-Com's system had advantages, said Short. Among them
was analog-to-digital communications capability.

Although the M/A-Com system is digital, the new county
radios will be able to communicate with analog equipment,
according to Short. That is a feature that Motorola lacks and
one that will benefit volunteer firefighters who want to
purchase less expensive equipment, he said.

Police will want to use digital radios because their message
can be encrypted, said Short. They will also be equipped with
a "panic button" that an officer in distress can press and alert
others to his location, he added.

Purchasing Motorola equipment also would have required
expensive alterations to the console used at the county
EMA's communications center, Short said.

The first step in converting to the new system will be to
install the infrastructure, including the cell towers, said Short.
Once the system is up and running, there will be a period of
about six months during which emergency responders will be
operating both the old and new systems while the kinks are
worked out, he said.

Residents who like to listen to emergency communications on
old scanners will be able to do for a while longer, said
Kauffman, but eventually they will have to update their
equipment.

"There is also some talk about simulcasting on low band for
awhile, but I don't know how long that is going to be in place
... a couple years at least," he said.

http://www.ldnews.com/Stories/0,1413,139~10137~1841324,00.html

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