By Tim Henderson
The Miami Herald
Copyright 2007 The Miami Herald
MIAMI — Aventura police are having trouble using radios in some parts of town and have asked for the power to review new buildings’ plans to make sure the problem doesn’t get worse.
The trouble spots are in the northeast part of the city, east of Biscayne Boulevard and north of 208th Street, in places like the Target shopping center on Biscayne Boulevard and the Classic Residence on Northeast 213th Street.
“If an officer’s in front of one of those buildings, he can’t use his radio,” Lt. Tom Labombarda told the city commission at a recent meeting. “He has to walk back to his car and use the radio there, because that’s a more powerful receiver.”
The commission agreed to consider legislation, at an unspecified date, to allow the police to review building plans and require retransmitters if necessary. The retransmitters, called bi-amps, pull in emergency signals and rebroadcast them to avoid interference.
For instance, the Aventura Mall and Aventura Hospital and Medical Center have installed the retransmitters voluntarily, Labombarda said, allowing officers to have full radio contact within the hospital and mall.
The cost was about $36,000 for the hospital and $184,000 for the mall, which required several of the small, antenna-like devices to cover the entire shopping center. Any new buildings, such as the planned City Place complex, would see costs somewhere between those two extremes if the devices are needed, Labombarda said.
The city is among the first in Florida to consider such legislation, though several Colorado municipalities have passed laws requiring building owners to improve radio signals. Greenwood Village, a Denver suburb, found radio signals were “inadequate” in 11 buildings and created potentially dangerous situations for officers in trouble.
Recently, the city created a requirement for new buildings to include retransmitters, if they create trouble for police or fire radios.
“Obviously, it’s better for the safety of the people in those buildings if there’s clear communication,” said Greenwood Village City Manager Jim Sanderson.
Lt. Michael Bentolila, the Aventura department’s spokesman, stressed that radio communications remain safe for the city’s officers. If the station loses radio contact with an officer, it will send another officer to check on his or her safety.
“It’s not the end of the world if we can’t use the radio,” Bentolila said. The city is more concerned about cutting back on the the need to refocus signals from its radio tower, which is in an undisclosed location, whenever there’s interference from buildings or an electrical storm.
“If a building becomes in effect a repeater, then instead of something hindering us it is now something that aids us,” Bentolila said. “Our city’s growing and we need to make some proactive effort to make sure our system stays effective.”
Better radio communication will also help other emergency services that use the same 800mhz frequency, like firefighters and paramedics. It could also cut back on interference from Plantation, the closest police agency that uses the same frequency.
“We depend on our radios. They’re our lifeline to the rest of the world,” Bentolila said.