|
Editorial: My cell versus your radio
Op-Ed · August 28, 2014
With all the other projects mounting on the city’s budget, the news in July that West Branch has until next December to upgrade its radio system — which early estimates place at nearly $500,000 — almost had council members grabbing their chests.
It also has us scratching our heads: How can it cost so much to upgrade a radio system — we’re talking audio only, here — when technology prices continue to drop all around us?
The big-ticket item on this list is replacing the radio repeater station, which is not compatible with the “P25” system many county agencies are moving toward.
The repeater helps eliminate “gaps” in the system, which are like dropped calls on cell phones. Obviously, we don’t want to hinder police officers or fire fighters trying to respond to an emergency by having their radios cutting out.
But does a city with 2,400 residents need to spend half a million dollars for clear radio signals to Tipton?
And let us clarify that this upgrade does not give us a better connection to Iowa City and Johnson County. West Branch’s fire department communicates with them quite often to answer calls on Interstate 80 and the east side of Iowa City, which are part of West Branch’s large fire district.
And, no, the Cedar County and Johnson County systems are, apparently, not compatible, either. Smartphone users can download free apps to listen to police and fire radio frequencies all over the United States through the Web. Isn’t this ease-of-use a big part of why we wanted to leave analog behind?
How can this be? It seems that if we can get Macs and PC to share text, audio and video, surely we can get two radio systems — even made by different companies — to recognize or translate different digital signals.
The city wisely hired a consulting firm in hopes of finding a solution that cost less — hopefully, considerably less — than the initial estimate. Of course we want the consulting company to find a way to get city emergency personnel talking not only to Cedar County, but Johnson County as well.
Yet it would be nice to understand how a middle-school pupil can call California from a smartphone at less than $100 a month, albeit with imperfect connections, but we have to shovel out hundreds of thousands of dollars to get police and fire communicating between two counties.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
