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County Considers $3.6 Million Radio System Upgrade, Including North Escambia Enhancements
June 25, 2014
The Escambia County Commission is set to consider about $3.6 million in improvements to the county’s radio system, including upgrades specifically designed to improve coverage in portions of the North Escambia area.
In late 2011, Escambia County switched the county’s radio system for agencies such as the sheriff, fire and EMS to a digital “P25″ system from Motorola at a cost of $12.5 million. The switch was necessitated due to a FCC mandate under which the system in place at the time was considered outdated.
Since that time, three areas of the county were identified where the new radio system provides poor or spotty coverage making the use of a handheld radios difficult if not impossible, according to Mike Weaver, Escambia County Public Safety Bureau Chief.
The problem reception areas were identified as being north of Century where mutual aid assistance is provided by Escambia County (FL) agencies into Escambia County, AL., an area in the center of the county north of Molino, and Scenic Highway from north of I-10 to south of the airport. Improvements will be made to existing radio equipment on water tower in Century, at an existing 300 foot tower at Don Sutton Ballpark in Molino and on an existing 300 foot tower in the Scenic Heights area.
“Right now, there are instances in these areas where poor coverage could result in a delayed or missed response (from first responders),” Weaver said. “These upgrades will solve that.”
Another major aspect of the $3.6 million upgrade will include replacement of the county’s microwave loop — the radio backbone that connects each tower site to other towers. The existing microwave system was installed in 1997 (not part of the 2011 $12.5 million upgrade). Replacement and repair parts have not been manufactured since 2009.
“Due to the critical nature of this equipment, it is imperative to replace this system before parts become unavailable and a possible catastrophic failure occurs that cripples Public Safety communications,” according to the county.
The radio upgrades will be funded with previously budgeted LOST (local options sales tax) funds. All or part of the system is currently used by public safety, the sheriff’s office, fire, EMS, emergency management, code enforcement, animal control, school board, ECAT and the road prison.
Comments
7 Responses to “County Considers $3.6 Million Radio System Upgrade, Including North Escambia Enhancements”
Another waste of tax payers money by a few elected officials that just don’t care. To little for to much! That’s the politicians way.
Switch to P25 and spending 12.5 Million had nothing to due with the FCC mandate. Motorola found a sucker and ran with it. This is what happens when you don’t have a radio expert on staff. The county could have saved a ton of money and expand there coverage. Look at Santa Rosa and Okaloosa Sheriff, there still on UHF and have good coverage.
Might as well get use to our government doing as they please.
They know we the voters will not remember these instances of poor judgment on their part.
And we will foolishly re-elect them time again no matter what they do.
I was incarcerated a couple years back and had a job in the supply warehouse. They upgraded the radio systems then too, via ‘Whalen Industries’, all the old radios, cell phones,etc were destroyed (by me with a sledge hammer) and thrown into the dumpster rather than being sold to smaller departments & getting some taxpayer monies back. Then there were also the uniforms, did you know that when they get a promotion they don’t just get another stripe sown on, NO, they get a whole new set of uniforms, and the old ones get destroyed, (once again by me) with a razor knife and disposed of into the dumpster, some of which still had the tags in them and had never been worn,or taken off the hangers. They could have been reused by another officer of the same rank, or simply had another stripe added. I destroyed thousands of dollars worth of perfectly good supplies that we as taxpayers bought, this is a disgrace don’t you think???
The FCC mandated that Public Saftey in the VHF Band move to Narrow Band. This did not mean that they had to buy a digital radio system. They could have stayed on analog and saved a ton of money. I know a Century firefighter and he told me about a year ago that the coverage was not good. The Century EMS every week goes to Brewton and has bad coverage up in Brewton. When they went digital the county also had to get more frequencies so other agencies could talk to them, Animal Countrol was on VHF Analog didn’t know they changed over. The School Board uses UHF Analog and Low Band VHF Analog also didnt know they changed over. I knew the Fire, EMS, Sheriff, Road Prison and Beach LifeGuards were digital didn’t know about the rest.
It looks like the county commissioners are once again going to blindly approve another “sweet deal” for the local Motorola dealer. They spent $12.5 million dollars in 2011 and evidently no coverage study was included for that amount of money? If there was a coverage study done, I would be willing to bet that it was done by the local Motorola dealer or a subsidiary of this company. Another major radio manufacturer offered a system which was equal or better to the Motorola for less cost and of course, Mr. Weaver and his counterparts in the other county agencies convinced the county commissioners that only Motorola equipment would work. Motorola is not the only quality radio manufacturer, nowadays. I wonder how taxpayers would feel if they knew that the Motorola portable radios that the sheriff’s office bought cost in excess of $3500.00 each. That does not include the cost of the Motorola mobile radios that are installed in most sheriff office vehicles.
If the county commissioners hadn’t been duped by Motorola and had simply waited to upgrade the existing system at the sheriff’s office, much of this $12.5 million dollars would have been offset by federal grants. Do you actually think the Federal Communications Commission is fining every small sheriff’s office or other government entity that has not switched to narrow band technology? Is in not happening, but Motorola convinced the county commissioners that the fines would be excessive…….a lot of federal dollars are available for this re-banding. Also, county commissioners were not sold a trunking system as some thought. All that was done was to narrow band and move from analog to digital technology. The other major manufacturer offered to install a state of the art 800 mhz trunking system and lease the county air time and radios at a fraction of the cost of $12.5 million dollars.
The towers that were re-worked or replaced during this upgrade in 2011 had all the work done by a subsidiary of the local Motorola dealer. Not to throw stones at the local Motorola dealer, they are fine folks, but there are other options than Motorola radios nowadays that provide as good if not better reliability.
Most of the volunteer fire departments in the north end of the county knew that this system would not work as it was presented. Ask a volunteer fireman you know and see what he says.
Most smart businesses lease equipment that will become obsolete within a few years. Why didn’t the county lease the system from the other major manufacturer when the overall cost to the taxpayers was considerably less than $12.5 million dollars, which included maintenance. Who do you think pays for that $3500.00 portable radio when it is lost? I’ll give you a hint: you and I, Joe Taxpayer.
Any independent communications engineer will tell you that the county did not spend the $12.5 million dollars wisely. I realize the general public may not be familiar with some of these terms, but I think any taxpayer can understand that we got the shaft again.
“the new radio system provides poor or spotty coverage making the use of a handheld radios difficult if not impossible”
For 12.5 Million they should done it right the first time as a complete package.
I wonder what they’ll need to sell us next?