The County is in the final stages of a long process to implement the Motorola P25 digital radio system, moving away from a legacy VHF radio system that is decades old. The new radios will provide county first response agencies better coverage and additional channels for communication.
County officials discussed the new equipment Wednesday morning at the Daviess County Fire Department’s airport station.
Daviess County Judge-Executive Al Mattingly said the VHF system put first responders in unnecessary danger due to breakdowns in communication.
“Keeping with our desire to always look out for public safety … (Fiscal Court) felt it incumbent upon us to bring the radio system into the 21st century,” Mattingly said.
The P25 radios also allow the county to have intercommunications with the city and state first response agencies because they already use that system.
Additionally, the VHF system had only four channels; now, the county is “virtually unlimited” on the number of channels — meaning a group can switch over to their own channel for isolated incidents rather than information from several incidents being communicated at the same time over the same channel.
Most significant, though, is the boost in coverage across the county and inside buildings.
“We would be out in certain areas of the county where if we got 60+ percent coverage that was a miracle,” said DCFD Chief Jeremy Smith. “Everything is kind of based off our mobile units, which are what is inside our vehicles. So if you weren’t at your vehicle, you lost so much strength you just couldn’t communicate.”
The new system, Smith said, is actually built for those mobile units.
“Now, if we walk away from a fire truck or are on a scene and we walk around, we’ve got 95-99% coverage throughout our county,” he said. “It allots us so much more assurance as we go out on a call to help those in need. The dispatcher is able to get us the things we need as we communicate that out.”
Sheriff Barry Smith also said it was mainly the portable radios that were causing significant issues with his office.
“Our staff are alone a lot of times, whether they’re out on traffic, whether they’re in a house working a domestic situation, or whatever,” Smith said. “Backup may not be coming because you don’t need it on a traffic stop until you need it. Or backup maybe 20 minutes away while you’re working a domestic in the house. So your only lifeline was this portable radio I have on my side. And there was about a 50/50 chance whether it was going to work.”
Motorola has completed all of the major testing procedures of the new radios, which will be digitally encrypted and IP-based. The Daviess County Fire Department and Sheriff’s Office are utilizing some of the new mobile (vehicular) radios already. Additional units are being programmed at Ohio Valley 2-Way Radio.
