Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cops change their frequency

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 12:37:43 -0400

Cops change their frequency
Kevin P O'Connor
04/23/2004

PAWTUCKET -- The police have started speaking in code, much to the
frustration of their fans in scannerland.
Police radios changed frequencies and began broadcasting in a digital
format on Tuesday, the day the department put nine new police cruisers
in service.

That means anyone who likes to listen to the police at work over the
police radio have been greeted with nothing but silence.
The official switch was timed to take place when the police began using
the new cruisers. Those cruisers replace the 4-year-old cars used by the
midnight to 8 a.m.  shift.

"It is a big improvement in radio clarity," said Police Major Douglas
Clary, who runs the business side of the police department. "We’ve
always had spots in the city where the radios were not of much use.

"These new radios have eliminated almost all of those spots."

A digital system breaks down the sounds to a string of digital code,
millions of ones and zeros, that is broadcast in a burst and then
reassembled as sound in the radio receiver.

Sound and video in the digital format is becoming the norm. DVDs and
compact disc use a digital format. Video tapes, cassette tapes and vinyl
records are all examples of the analogue format.

The department decided to change to a digital format last year after the
police applied for and received a $400,000 federal grant to revamp their
communications system.

That grant paid for new radios in all the cars, handsets for police on
duty and a transmitter system that included repeater towers around the
city.

The new radios broadcast more clearly and for greater distances that the
old system did, Clary said.

The old system, even with its repeater system, had difficulty reaching
some parts of the city, including between the buildings in Galego Court,
in the tunnels connecting the basements of Wilmarth Court on Harrison
Street and in some parts of Memorial Hospital.

Memorial Hospital is about the only dead zone left now, Clary said.

The problem was giving up the analogue system, that had a legion of
listeners in the city.
"Our scanner listeners have always been a big help to us," Clary said.
"Especially when we are chasing someone, listeners will call in to tell
us where the person is going.

"We hate to lose that. Of course, it helps us, too, because sometimes
the criminals use scanners."

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11374147&BRD=1713&PAG=461&dept_id=24491&rfi=6

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