W.Va. county begins handing out digital radios to first responders

By Rusty Marks
The Charleston Gazette

KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. — Kanawha County officials started handing out the first of 743 new digital emergency radios on Thursday.

The radios were purchased with a $1 million appropriation orchestrated by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.

Kanawha County will use the radios to tie into a planned statewide digital radio system that will allow police officers, firefighters, ambulance crews or other emergency personnel to talk to each other all across the state — with hand units, if necessary.

“This [appropriation] completed what would have taken us five years to get done,” Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper said.

Carper and commissioners Dave Hardy and Hoppy Shores announced the new radios with a flourish at a regular County Commission meeting Thursday. Boxes of the new radios filled the Ccounty Commission chambers in the old courthouse, in places stacked seven tiers high.

County officials played a pre-recorded message from Byrd, who identified himself by the radio handle “Big Daddy.”

”... When I was contacted by officials there in Kanawha County about the need for new radios I said ‘Roger that’ and used my position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to get us $1 million in new interoperable radios,” Byrd said. “The men and women who will use it need it - the people of Kanawha County deserve it - and Robert C. Byrd is glad to help you get it. That’s a big ’10-4'!’ ”

Dave Erwin, director of the Kanawha County Emergency Operations Center, said current emergency handheld radios have a range of only a few miles.

“You wouldn’t be able to talk all across the county with the equipment we currently have,” he said.

“With the new system you have not only local, but countywide, regionwide, and if the need arises, statewide. You’d be able to talk from one end of the state to the other.”

To demonstrate the new system, Erwin first tried to call firefighters in Montgomery using one of the old hand radios. His calls went unheeded.

Then Erwin tried calling Montgomery using one of the new digital radios. He got a response almost immediately.

The new radios will allow someone in Charleston to talk to someone in Morgantown on their hand radio.

The digital radios broadcast on an extremely high frequency, allowing them to carry farther with better clarity.

Some emergency responders in other states reported problems with earlier generations of the digital radios, including interference from other sound sources like sirens. But Charleston Emergency Services Director Grant Gunnoe said Charleston has not had any problems with its digital radios.

Charleston’s fire department has been using the interoperable digital radios for about a year.

County officials handed out radios to most of the major volunteer fire departments and police departments on Thursday. Erwin said it would probably take a month or two to distribute all 743 radios and train emergency responders on how to use them.

Copyright 2010 Charleston Newspapers