By Ryan Robinson
Lancaster New Era
Copyright 2007 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
LANCASTER, Pa. — Software glitches have delayed testing of the new countywide radio system.
So the $35 million wireless system expected to improve communication among emergency services won’t be operating as quickly as officials had hoped.
“We are probably within two years of doing the switch,” Mike Weaver, director of Lancaster County-Wide Communications, said Friday. “It’s been very frustrating, some of these things.”
He blamed software glitches with not allowing “coverage testing” to occur over the summer as planned.
Coverage testing involves trying out the radio system while trees are full of leaves. Leaves and pine needles absorb electrical energy and affect radio transmissions, Weaver said.
A launch of the new system has been postponed from early 2009 to later that year at the earliest.
Right now, M/A-Com Inc., the radio system’s builder, is working to fix the software problems.
Weaver expects coverage testing, which takes about four weeks, will be conducted next spring.
If that goes well, an operational test will be done.
That involves two police departments, two fire companies and two emergency medical services agencies using the system for 30 days to see if anything breaks, Weaver said.
If no problems arise, that’s when the county would tell all police, fire and emergency services departments to purchase their radio equipment. That process likely would go “well into 2009,” Weaver said.
When all police departments had their radio equipment ready, the county would switch them over from the old system to the new one.
Then the same would occur for firefighters and other emergency services.
“There is no way to avoid a period of time when both systems are up,” Weaver said, “but we want to minimize that because it’s a safety issue.”
Police, fire and EMS departments have been instructed not to buy the new radio equipment until the new system has been fully tested and accepted. Some have already done so, however, so they could qualify for certain grants.
Weaver said all but one of the 32 radio towers needed for the project is finished. One site in Falmouth in Conoy Township is expected to be completed no later than the spring.
Interference issues with the radio system are also being worked out, Weaver said.
Cell provider Nextel Communications is being shifted out of the 800-megahertz spectrum, which will be used by M/A-Com’s system.
The county’s current radio system dates to the 1950s.
Talks about getting a new one began in 1989 and the county began seriously looking into it in 1996.
In 2000, the county decided to go with M/A-Com, a defense contractor and subsidiary of Tyco Inc.
Since then, the bankruptcy of the radio tower builder, Illinois-based Rohn Industries, legal problems with securing rights to build the towers, and now software glitches have plagued the project.
But Weaver said the cost of the project has not gone up, as M/A-Com is responsible for the extra work involved.
The M/A-Com technology doesn’t use analog radio transmissions, but employs “voice over IP,” or Internet protocol, to send emergency messages.
Data is broken into packets and shipped via a microwave network. The transmissions can be encrypted, which is not possible now.
Both voice and data communications can be sent over the same system.
The technology is expected to give more reliable communications throughout the county, and also for emergency workers when they are inside buildings.