Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Dead air no more for police patrol officers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 16:03:23 -0400

Dead air no more for police patrol officers
01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 4, 2004
By JOHN CASTELLUCCI
Journal Staff Writer

PAWTUCKET -- Describing the new police radio communications system,
Police Chief George L. Kelley III put it this way:
The Pawtucket Police Department has gone from "an analog to a digital
system," with a "UHF signal" that is beamed out over "three channels,
each containing three zones."

What that means, in plain English, is that the city is safer, not only
for residents, but for police officers themselves.
Gone is the dead spot that cut off communications whenever the police
ventured into Memorial Hospital, where, according to Capt. Paul King,
the hospital's x-ray shielding blocked radio signals.

Also gone, King said, is the dead spot in the Shaw's supermarket plaza
on the Providence city line at Collyer Street and Smithfield Avenue,
where a steep drop in elevation had the same effect.

Police radio transmissions are now coming in much clearer, over multiple
channels and from a much greater distance.  "Now officers talk as far as
Foster," Kelley said, "or East Greenwich or Warwick or Foxboro. These
communications are coming in as clear now as if they were just two
streets away."

The new communications system cost about $1 million to acquire and
install. About $750,000 of the money took the form of an appropriation
shepherded through Congress by Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy.

The new police radio has been in operation about a week.  Yesterday,
Kennedy and Chief Kelley gathered with police and city officials at
police headquarters to describe the capabilities of the communications
system and show it off.

Kennedy pointed out that police work by its nature is high-risk.  "It
seems to me in this day and age, with technology being what it is, that
we ought to have the latest in technology. We ought to have the cutting
edge in going after criminals," he said.
"And that is why I felt so strongly about making sure that there were no
dead spots, so to speak, within the city of Pawtucket when it came to
our law enforcement community talking to the dispatcher, talking to one
another, making sure that, when they had an opportunity to apprehend
someone, that they weren't going to lose that opportunity because they
lost communication," he said.

Pawtucket's new high-tech radio system is the second in the state,
Kelley said. The first was installed in West Warwick four years ago.

Kelley, who has been police chief since 1999, said the need for the new
system became clear three years ago, when Maj.  Douglas Clary, the
police officer in charge of administration, came to him and said the old
system was operating on a "shoestring," with one antenna, a single
frequency and part of an adjoining wavelength.

One beauty of the new system is that it provides up to 18 channels of
communication, Kelley said, making it possible for the Police
Department's bike patrol, its special response team, or SWAT unit --
even its Special Squad, or vice unit -- to communicate uninterrupted on
their own channels while routine police communications are under way.

http://www.projo.com/blackstone/content/projo_20040504_pradio04.777ee.html

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