|
City defends new radio operation
AUGUSTA, Nov 20, 2009 (Kennebec Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
The city's new $1 million public safety communications system may have multiple glitches, but it still provides communications to about 97 percent of the city, compared to about 60 percent with the old system, officials told city councilors Thursday.
The glitches include paramedics having to use cell phones to communicate with hospitals from the back of ambulances because radios haven't been installed there yet, occasions of communications being lost to some of the city's fire stations, decreased radio coverage inside downtown buildings, and problems getting communications to firefighters in neighboring Hallowell.
Concerns about communications problems prompted the firefighters' union to write a letter recently requesting the city switch back to its former analog system.
But Fire Chief Roger Audette told Augusta city councilors Thursday that repairs for the glitches have either been installed, are in the process of being installed or are on their way.
The problem in communicating with Hallowell, which receives public safety dispatching from Augusta, is on Hallowell's end of things, not Augusta's, Augusta City Manager William Bridgeo said.
Hallowell Fire Chief Michael Grant had said Hallowell lost radio communications, due to Augusta's switch to digital technology, at a fire scene last week.
"With all due respect to Chief Grant, there is work on the Hallowell end that needs to be done, that we could not do," Bridgeo told Augusta city councilors Thursday. "Once it leaves the outside of our building, it becomes Hallowell's problem."
Augusta and Hallowell officials met Wednesday, and Bridgeo said Hallowell is considering hiring the same consultant Augusta uses to work on the system to address the connection problem between Augusta and Hallowell.
Augusta officials said the problem in connecting with Hallowell is not related to the city's digital system.
There have also been complaints from Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty that Augusta denied the county's request to be able to use the city's new digital radio frequencies so officers from both agencies could communicate with each other.
Augusta Assistant City Manager Ralph St. Pierre said the city wants to sort out its own use of the system before allowing communications and access to it by outside agencies.
Once bugs are worked out, the city may consider opening it up to other agencies, he said.
St. Pierre noted sheriff's deputies, and anyone else with a digital radio or scanner, can listen to Augusta's officers simply by programing Augusta's frequencies into their radios.
And, he said, officers can already -- and will be able to continue to -- communicate with each other, regardless of which agency they're from through other radio frequencies, including statewide "car-to-car" frequencies.
The city's new $1 million system -- all but about $250,000 of which was paid for with federal Homeland Security money -- provides two channels for police and two for fire. Bridgeo said it could affect the safety of Augusta's officers using those channels if access to the channels was also offered to other agencies.
Augusta City Councilor Patrick Paradis -- who, after a technical jargon-filled, nearly hourlong presentation on the communications issues said he was as confused as he was just five minutes into the discussion -- said the city needs to do more to work with other law-enforcement agencies in the area.
"The money isn't there to work on our own, as a lone ranger, anymore," Paradis said. "The public expects better than that. The public expects us to be able to talk to each other, not just listen to each other."
St. Pierre said the digital system replaced an outdated system and was cheaper than a new analog system would have been, while reaching more of the city.
Audette said the city's new system reaches 97 percent of the city, versus the previous, 30-year-old system that reached just 60 percent.
However, Audette agreed that communications between firefighters and police on portable radios inside some downtown Water Street buildings, and the dispatch center, have gotten worse with the new system, sometimes not working at all. He said communications equipment installed on Blueberry Hill should improve communications downtown.
St. Pierre said he would meet with representatives of the company that manufactured the communications equipment, Tate, today to get a system installed into the back of ambulances so paramedics can communicate with hospitals by radio, not cell phone.
To see more of the Kennebec Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.kjonline.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
[ Satellite Spotlight's Homepage ]
|
