Advertisement
Radio upgrade could reach $500K
by Rick DeClue · News · July 31, 2014


Upgrading the city’s public safety communications system could run up to $500,000 or more, so the City Council last week hired a consultant to find the best way to meet a December 2015 deadline.


At its July 17 meeting, the West Branch City Council approved an $8,600 proposal from Elert and Associates for a feasibility study to determine the best way to meet the Cedar County deadline.

“We’re not radio experts,” Mayor Mark Worrell and City Administrator Matt Muckler said.

Both also said that the city’s guidance in the past typically came from communication equipment manufacturers.

Elert is a 30-year-old company that has worked with hundreds of state, county and municipal agencies to develop and implement upgrades, according to company documents. They do not manufacture equipment. Both Johnson County and Linn County worked with the company on their new systems.

The 2015 deadline reflects the plans for the completion of Cedar County’s new “P25” system. The P25 is the industry standard developed over the past 25 years for emergency communications.

West Branch Police Chief Mike Horihan said P25’s digital, multi-band, multi-jurisdictional, and encrypted technology capabilities are the future of law enforcement.

He said the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office currently provides dispatch communication to West Branch through our local “repeater,” or base station, and the system works well.

However, West Branch’s repeater is not compatible with the new P25 technology and will become obsolete next year.

Tests conducted by the police department without the local repeater showed gaps in communications, especially in buildings with significant metal construction.

Building a new local repeater station is one of the biggest potential costs of the upgrade.

The department has purchased two P25 radios so far, with two more scheduled for this year’s budget. Horihan said he is trying to spread the impact of the radio purchases since one multi-band unit costs $5,000 to $6,000.

West Branch has multi-jurisdictional issues. While most of the city is in Cedar County, part of the city is in Johnson County. The Johnson and Cedar County upgrades have different characteristics, making them one of the primary drivers for the multi-band radios.

The West Branch Fire Department regularly responds to calls in Johnson County, often involving Interstate 80 accidents, and serves one of the largest fire districts in Iowa by covering six townships.

Fire Chief Kevin Stoolman said his department has taken some steps to improve their communication capabilities, but he will wait for the consultant’s report before making any further decisions.

Horihan said the communications must be 100 percent effective, i.e. no gaps, take advantage of as many of the uses and benefits of the new technology as possible, but fit within the city’s budget.

The upgrade will move the city toward current industry standards, but also must try to anticipate future improvements and changes in technology, said Horihan, to increase the useful life of the investment.

Worrell closed the discussion by noting the city had tried to address potential changes in this area about eight years ago. He was not being critical, but said not being able to pursue what were expensive options then led to where he feels West Branch is today.

“The chickens have come home to roost,” he said.

According to information contained in Elert’s proposal and supported by the Project 25 Technology Interest Group, the search for industry standards have been evolving since the early 1970’s.

The current technology, formally called APCO P25, is becoming widely accepted around the world, though it competes with a separate European technology. APCO stands for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials – International.

In October 1989, even prior to the 9/11 attacks, the early efforts began to coalesce when several agencies, including the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, predecessors of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard and various equipment manufacturers started APCO. There are currently approximately 40 different equipment providers.

The two basic configurations involve either the repeater/base station set up which uses dedicated bandwidth for direct radio to radio contact, or a more complex “trunking” system that sets up assigned user groups that typically contact each other and allows a computer to efficiently direct communications to any clear public safety radio spectrum.

There were – and are – many challenges:

• different and limited public safety radio spectrum

• communicating with analog or “legacy” radios, and digital equipment

• large and small users groups that can be single or multi-jurisdictional

• differing protocols and training

• planning, coordination and cooperation across multiple agencies

• governance, ownership and control issues

• security issues, hence the move toward encryption

• a tendency to choose minimal implementation, forgoing the benefits of the technology

• costs for both broadcast equipment and P25 radios.

Along with the most effective use of the radio spectrum, the most critical issue is the ability of first responders to communicate with each other during an emergency, and the biggest determining factor is funding.