County eyeing new 911 communications system
Montgomery County officials are faced with a tough choice: Update the county’s communications system, or risk facing radio silence.
The decision is one facing multiple area counties, including Mills and Fremont. Page County has already updated their communications system, and Mills County is also making a move to update their system. Fremont County remains undecided.
Montgomery County Emergency Management Coordinator Brian Hamman outlined details of the proposed changeover at a meeting of the Emergency Management Commission on Dec. 21. The proposal from Motorola, with discounts, would cost the county roughly $5.28 million.
Hamman said the system they are looking at would start from the ground up, with an entirely new radio communications system for all public safety in Montgomery County.
“Right now, we have an antiquated system that is roughly 20 to 40 years old. Some of the parts and radios are at the end of their lifespan and need to be replaced. We’ve done little to advance our communications system as a whole with technology and upgrades, and we’re at a point where we really need to move forward with a new system,” Hamman said.
Other counties that have moved forward with new systems are using the State of Iowa’s interoperable system, which Hamman said Montgomery County would also do.
“We would be piggybacking off the state system. Creating our own, while using theirs as the main hub of the system. The benefit to that is we would have our own towers, and would be assisted with support from the other county’s towers, saving some of the cost to the county from joining the system, and utilizing what’s being built around the state in Southwest Iowa,” commented Hamman.
In 2012, the FCC narrow-banded the county’s VHF frequency to gain more frequencies and narrow down what the county was operating on. That cut the county’s coverage area in half. The county added additional repeater sites to make up the coverage loss, but there are still reliability and coverage issues. Hamman said word is the FCC is planning to narrow-band the VHF frequency even further.
“If that occurs before we move forward, we would essentially have a non-existing radio system, because we would not be able to communicate,” Hamman explained.
If nothing happens, Hamman said the county will be put into a very difficult situation.
“Radio communications are a top priority for firefighter safety, officer safety, and citizens’ safety. It’s something we have to have. Unfortunately, for the last several years, we haven’t advanced into the future and done much in the way of upgrades,” Hamman said. “If the other counties move forward with the new system, and Montgomery County does not, it will put those counties on different frequencies than we would operate on. There’s still a chance we would have some contact with them, but if they’re operating on different bands than we are, we would not have strong communications with them, and would affect us providing mutual aid.”
With those issues in mind, Hamman felt upgrading the county to the new system brought a lot of positivies.
“The new system would have features for officer safety. Everyone would have the same radio and we would be consistent throughout the county.
The high price tag for the upgrade, Hamman said, is largely due to having to start from the ground up.
“A good chunk of the cost is because we have to add three complete tower sites. We don’t have any of our own. We operate on a mixed bag of sources, including power poles, an abandoned windmill, a water tower, and a radio tower,” Hamman advised.
Today, Hamman will present the information to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors at their regular meeting. Hamman said the proposal has seen a lot of support.
“The project was unanimously supported by all of the fire chiefs, police department, and sheriff’s office, as well as the emergency management commission. They felt it should be proposed to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and have the project funded in full as a county project, rather than piecing it out into segments and putting the burden on the cities,” said Hamman.
Due to the high cost of the project, Hamman said it was a difficult one to propose, but the county was at a crossroads.
“It’s got to be done. There’s a lot of unknowns in the world right now. My biggest concern is that someone may get seriously hurt because they couldn’t talk on their radios, or an emergency call gets missed because of communications issues. The new system gives us reliability, a gain in coverage, and upgraded equipment. Everything about the system is 100 percent better than we have now. This is absolutely something we need. And now our choice is to do something, or spend a lot of money to stay status quo for an known amount of time, and be faced with having to spend this amount of money or more somewhere down the road,” Hamman said.
Red Oak Police Chief Justin Rhamy said he was hopeful the new system would be approved, citing the need for officer safety.
“On numerous occasions, all of the departments have been in situations where we were unable to communicate with our dispatch center, and that’s here in town. Further outside the city, it’s even worse. That’s a clear sign we have problems that need to be addressed,” Rhamy said.
The EMA commission approved drafting a letter of support for the project to be submitted to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors.