County leaders to shape 911 radio system upgrade

STATE COLLEGE, PA — When you dial 911, chances are you aren’t thinking about how the radio system on the other end of the line works.

But among Centre County officials, there have been ongoing discussions about the need to upgrade the radio system that allows police, firefighters and emergency medical responders to communicate.

As the Nov. 8 election approaches, questions of exactly how the aging system should be upgraded, and how the county will pay the cost, which could run $20 million or more, have become dominant issues in campaigns of the four county commissioner candidates vying for three available seats.

There is general agreement that the county should switch from its current analog systems to a digital system that would provide more complete coverage of the county. And there seems to be agreement that the county should move away from having several radio systems — including the main one run by the county, and another run by Penn State — to a unified operation.

“The entire industry and the entire radio community, more or less, is moving toward digital,” said Dan Tancibok, Emergency Communications Office director.

There are essentially two problems with the current analog system:

•finding replacement parts to maintain the aging system is becoming increasingly difficult; and

•because of its original design, the system doesn’t reach all areas of the county, particularly remote parts of Penns Valley, the Pine Glen area and Moshannon Valley.

Having more than one system also adds another step to responders’ jobs, as they have to switch between multiple systems to communicate with each other.

Tancibok stressed that there are no problems with calls to 911 or the paging system used to dispatch fire companies and ambulance services to emergencies. It’s after firefighters and EMS workers have responded to a scene and have to communicate with each other and with dispatchers — particularly in areas where radio coverage is poor — that they encounter problems.

“We have coverage issues because of the way the system was designed years ago, because of financial constraints and also because the county’s grown,” Tancibok said. “We’ve got housing developments now in places that were just fields years ago.”

Limited reception

In one of the far reaches of the county in Miles Township, there is no radio coverage. Brad Miller, chief of the Miles Township Fire Company, said that means using one part of the system to talk to dispatchers, then switching to another channel that enables firefighters to talk to each other in an area limited to about a mile.

Miller said coverage is spotty at best in Miles Township.

“You can be standing in one place and have perfect radio coverage and walk 10 feet away and not have anything,” he said.

In 2007, the previous Board of Commissioners hired an engineering firm, L. Robert Kimball and Associates, to study the county’s system and make recommendations for improving it. The Kimball report issued in spring 2008 — after the current board had taken office — recommended replacing the analog system with a digital one and getting the 80-plus departments and agencies that are part of the emergency response system in the county on one system.

A communications advisory committee then studied the options and the county received a proposal for a new system from Motorola. Motorola recommended adding eight towers to the existing 12 to make sure the entire county has good coverage. The committee reviewed that recommendation and agreed.

Emergency medical services use a separate radio system to communicate. Rich Kelley, a clinical supervisor at Mount Nittany Medical Center EMS who serves on the committee, said under the recommendations of Kimball and the advisory committee, all responders would be on the same radio system.

“That would be a tremendous improvement over the current system,” he said.

He said EMS responders are reminded of the problem every year during a disaster drill at the airport that involves police, fire departments and EMS providers.

“It’s a pretty antiquated system that’s in need of a better radio system that allows interoperability for all emergency providers,” he said.

While the county runs the main radio system, Penn State and State College operate another one. Each of the two systems can each serve as the other’s backup, if needed.

Once the county began to review its system, the university did the same. Steve Shelow, assistant vice president for university police and public safety, said an evaluation presented Penn State with two options: build its own digital system or join the county’s.

The university decided the latter would be the best choice, Shelow said.

“We are extremely interested in continuing discussions with the county to be part of a single system that gets built out countywide,” he said.

He cited a home football game weekend as an example of a time when it would be important for all the emergency service providers to be able to communicate with each other.

“I don’t think you can do that effectively, whether it’s policing, running emergency services for the stadium, planning for emergency services countywide or acting as one another’s backup, if you’re running two separate platforms,” he said.

Along with addressing the coverage issues, Tancibok said digital is much more efficient and can do more because of the way it operates.

“It gives us much greater flexibility in managing the network,” Tancibok said.

Read the full story here.

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