New radio system to go online next month
BENTONVILLE — Some of Benton County’s firstresponders will soon be able to communicate better between agencies and improve safety for policemen and firefighters.
The Sheriff’s Office, along with some police and volunteer fire departments, will soon have a new radio system. They’ll begin using portable radios the fourth week in September to communicate through the Arkansas Wireless Information Network.
The state owns the network, and Motorola provides the equipment.
Kenneth Paul, operations major for the Sheriff’s Office, said the Arkansas State Police, Arkansas Game and Fish and law enforcement agencies across the state use the network.
The new system cost $3.75 million. The county used $1.75 million from reserve and borrowed $2 million to pay for the project.
It improves safety for deputies or officers in the field, Paul said. The radios can be found by GPS positioning, showing the location of the officer. That will be useful in searchand-rescue situations, so agencies can keep track of where their officers are. The tracking feature will also be useful if something were to happen to an officer and he was unable to respond to dispatchers.
“It’s going to allow for better coverage,” said Robert McGowan, Benton County public safety director. “One of the main things it resolves is that there are areas where they can’t get out on the radio because of the current system. That will be fixed with this system.”
Paul said the new radio system will have up to 90% coverage using the portable radios while the units in vehicles will have 99.99% coverage.
“We had places in the county, especially in eastern Benton County, where we had no coverage at all,” Paul said of the old system. “When you were leaving town and going into those areas, you called dispatch and let them know you were going to be off the air.”
Paul said the transition to the new system will begin in September when the Sheriff’s Office hands out the portable radios to deputies and other agencies.
“We are going to wait a couple of weeks to get all the kinks out and then install the mobile radios in our vehicles,” he said. “It will take about a month to install the radios in all the vehicles.”
The Sheriff’s Office purchased 601 portable radios and 356 mobile radios for vehicles. The county also purchased 175 digital pagers, which cost $121,625, for the volunteer fire departments, Paul said.
Motorola is installing the system and it will be linked to seven towers in the county: one each in Bella Vista, Garfield, Highfill, Gravette and Siloam Springs and two in Rogers.
Police departments dispatched by the county’s Central Communication purchased their own radios, Paul said.
Beaver Lake Fire Chief John Whisenant said his department will receive 18 hand radios, 14 pagers and eight mobile units for vehicles. Whisenant said his department’s primary source of money is fire dues, and the department couldn’t afford to purchase the radios and pagers.
The current communication system is out-dated, and there are coverage issues interfering with his firefighters communicating with dispatch and with each other at scenes, he said.
The new system will resolve those issues, Whisenant said.
“I don’t think it will be a difficult transition since the county has been putting out information about the system,” he said.
Police departments in Rogers, Fayetteville and Springdale are using the wireless network, Paul said. Washington County is installing the system, he said. The police departments in Bentonville and Rogers use different digital communication systems, but Paul said they will still be able to communicate with the departments.
Paul said the Sheriff’s Office has been using the current radio system for more than 20 years.
McGowan said the console, which is the computer running the radio system for dispatch, is being updated. The console will work in tandem with the radio system, he said.
Jennifer Reynolds, Central Communications director, doesn’t expect any major problems for her 29 full-time dispatchers in using the new consoles.
Voters in Washington County approved a temporary 0.25% sales tax on March 3 for a one year to pay for a new emergency communications system.
Capt. Josh McConnell with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said in March the county was working out details of contracts for the $8.5 million system.
The money will be dedicated to buying equipment, such as 12 dispatch consoles, and to building infrastructure, including four communications towers.
McConnell said the towers will be built in the Hazel Valley area, and near Winslow, Morrow and Lincoln. He said seven of the 12 dispatch consoles will be provided to the Sheriff’s Office and five to Central Emergency Medical Services.
Washington County’s current system, which is about 15 years old, has about 1,700 radios assigned to it, he said. The new system may have fewer, but the number will still exceed 1,500.