2000-11-08 CC - Laserfiche WebLink

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.. SECTION III ALTERNATIVE PUBLIC SAFETY RADIO SYSTEMS IN ANOKA COUNTY 3.1 ENHANCE EXISTING RADIO SYSTEMS It is clear that the existing public safety radio systems in Anoka County have serious deficiencies and unmet needs that must be addressed as soon as possible to continue to provide effective and efficient service to the public and to provide as much safety as possible for personnel in vehicles responding to incidents. It is important that the significance of the radio communications deficiencies be understood. Fire fighter and law enforcement personnel need to be able to talk with dispatch center personnel and with other persons on or near the scene of many incidents. The ability to communicate is needed if maximum safety of operations is to result. Fire fighters inside or on top of buildings must be warned of changed conditions including impending collapse and fire nearing explosive or other wise dangerous materials. Law enforcement personnel must alert each other to the location or movement of dangerous persons in a building, and alert each other as to each officers position and movement. Some of the most dangerous functional duties of law enforcement personnel include car stops and suspicious building checks. The level of safety of fire fighters and law enforcement personnel is reduced if those persons cannot communicate with others on the first try because of poor coverage, congestion and/or interference deficiencies. Most volunteer fire departments are having difficulty in the recruitment of a sufficient number of fire fighters and are short handed as a result. The staffing levels are particularly difficult during work day hours. At present, in about half of the area of Anoka County, radio paging receivers fail to receive incident alerts a significant percentage of the time when a person with a pager is indoors. A volunteer fire fighter cannot respond if the radio page receiver does not receive the alert message. No responders means no response to a fire or response by an adjoining fire department with a delay in alerting and a longer travel time. This is only one example of a reduction in service to the public caused by deficiencies in radio communications. Deciding to continue public safety land mobile radio systems as they are should not be considered and is not an alternative discussed in this report. One of the alternatives for providing an improved two-way land mobile radio system for use by public safety agencies in Anoka County would be to enhance the existing radio systems. This subsection 3.1 of this report discusses possible ways in which existing systems might be enhanced to overcome some of the existing deficiencies. Subsection 3.2 has a description of a system that, if implemented, will completely replace the land mobile radio systems currently used. Ronald Vegemast Engineering, Inc. -21- Report: Anoka County