Subject: [NEXTEL-1] County to implement new dispatch system

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 16:37:29 -0400

Saturday, April 19, 2003

County to implement new dispatch system

By JASON MILLER
Staff writer

Allegan County officials plan to have a new 911 digital
radio dispatch system running for police by November
and they hope local fire departments will join the
system in the coming year.

Harriet Miller-Brown, the county's central dispatch
director, said the switch from the existing
telephone-based dispatch system to one using an 800
MHz VHF radio frequency system begins next month.

The project will do away with the antiquated system,
which requires all county law enforcement, fire and
emergency responders to use the same frequencies to
receive dispatch calls.

"Most of the problems were with the telephone lines,
so the new system will be an improvement because it
runs on radio frequencies," said Miller-Brown. "This
program will give us a long-term solution."

Miller-Brown told county commissioners Thursday that
the county will begin erecting four new communication
towers around the county in early May, with testing of
the new system scheduled for August and September.

Two existing towers will be used as well.

If all goes well, Miller-Brown said, installation of the
system in county police and ambulance vehicles will
begin in November.

From that point, fire departments throughout the
county will have more than a year to study the system
and its success with other agencies before choosing to
adopt the system themselves.

Running the county on two different systems will not
cause major problems, Miller-Brown said, because the
fire department pagers will be switched to VHF, but
won't be programmed to the higher frequency.

"They're built to exist with the 800 Megahertz system
later on," she said.

County officials have struggled in recent years with
getting the program off the ground because Saugatuck
Township officials had doubts about leasing a portion of
land to the county for the construction of a tower.

In July, however, the township decided to lease the
space near I-196 to the county for a lump sum of
$50,000, paving the way for the early May tower
construction.

The cost for the radio system infrastructure, including all
units placed in vehicles throughout the county, will cost
about $8 million and maintaining the system will cost
around $3 million over 10 years.

Add to that the cost of a new dispatch building erected
last year and other costs and it will total about $13.1
million, Miller-Brown said.

The funding will come from a six-year, one mill increase
passed in 1998 to build the system.

Operating costs for the service will come from a
surcharge of just over $2 charged to all telephone
customers in Allegan County.

http://www.thehollandsentinel.net/stories/041903/loc_041903009.shtml

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