Subject: [NEXTEL-1] City firefighters, police switch to digital radios

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:14:39 -0500

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/4703895.htm

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 

Click here to visit other RealCities sites

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC=http://krd.realcities.com/js.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=krnorth&proptype=krd_city&webprop=philly&product=mld&subproduct=philly&size=ribbon&pos=h1&c1=news&c2=local&c3=none>
</SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC=http://krd.realcities.com/js.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=krnorth&proptype=krd_city&webprop=philly&product=mld&subproduct=philly&size=banner&pos=top&c1=news&c2=local&c3=none>
</SCRIPT>

Help Contact Us Site Index Archives Place an Ad Newspaper Subscriptions

Search

Search the Archives

News

Local

Nation

World

Politics

Obituaries

Weather

Weird News

Columnists

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC=http://krd.realcities.com/js.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=krnorth&proptype=krd_city&webprop=philly&product=mld&subproduct=philly&size=button&pos=left1&c1=news&c2=local&c3=none>
</SCRIPT>

Knight Ridder Washington Bureau

Making sense of Washington and the world.

Washington Bureau

Our Site Tools

Weather

Philadelphia

38

32

Doylestown

34

28

Atlantic City

40

29

Local Events

Yellow Pages

Discussion Boards

Maps & Directions

NEWSPAPER PARTNERS

»

Daily News City & Local

»

Daily News Opinion

»

Daily News Obituaries

»

Inquirer Front Page

»

Inquirer Local & Regional

»

Inquirer Opinion

»

Inquirer Obituaries

Back to Home >
News >

Tuesday, Dec 10, 2002

Local

Posted on Tue, Dec. 10, 2002

City firefighters, police switch to digital radios

The system will end private reception of the calls until new equipment is available.

By Thomas J. Gibbons Jr.

Inquirer Staff Writer

Calling all cars. Calling all cars. Welcome to the digital future.

Public-safety radio communications in Philadelphia are about to change for the better, city officials say.

By the end of the month, private reception of police radio calls in Philadelphia will be almost entirely eliminated because of a new $52 million digital radio system. The Fire Department is expected to fully upgrade from its old analog system next month.

The change means that those in the private sector whose daily routines or lines of work are tethered to doses of city police and fire calls - such as armchair enthusiasts, tow-truck accident chasers, and even the media - will be temporarily left in the dark, unless they have a city-supplied radio or until monitoring equipment available to the public comes on the market.

That should come late next month, according to Scott Carpenter of Uniden America Corp., an electronics company in Fort Worth, Texas. Uniden expects to have a "trunk-tracker" scanner on the market by then that will receive Philadelphia police and fire calls, he said.

The cost will not be cheap - at least $650 - hundreds of dollars more than current scanners that monitor the old UHF (police) and VHF (fire) transmissions.

"It's the most significant improvement in radio communications in the history of the Philadelphia Police Department - and it's going to take a little getting used to," Deputy Police Commissioner Charles Brennan said of the new system.

One major part of becoming accustomed to what is officially called the new 800-megahertz digital trunked radio system - planned and installed here over several years by the manufacturer, Motorola Inc. - is that when the microphone is pushed to talk, users might encounter some chirping noises and a brief delay in transmitting, which could clip an initial word or two.

Brennan said that increased familiarity with the radio - with speakers realizing they must pause briefly before beginning to talk - and training will overcome that problem.

The switch to digital also means that police cruisers will no longer have two-way radios mounted in vehicles. A number have already been removed, changing a part of policing that began here in the Roaring Twenties, when experimental sets were first installed in vans.

Although patrol cars will still have their mobile computer data-links to headquarters, officers now will rely entirely on digital, battery-operated walkie-talkies on their belts. Those devices have been found to work even from deep inside high-rise Center City buildings.

In the last several months, as fire and police employees became acquainted with the new system, a so-called patch allowed Police Department and Fire Department radios to operate on both the old analog system as well as the new digital frequencies. Not for long.

This patch - using both setups - causes clarity problems on the new system. That will end when the patch is severed, Brennan said.

"When we cut the patch, all the old scanners will be unable to pick up our frequencies," said Brennan, who heads the department's Scientific and Technical Operations branch.

That's all except J-Band, the citywide police channel used for major incidents. Brennan said he would leave that in operation until June to allow the 23 outside law-enforcement agencies that have it in their cars to switch to new equipment. And it also means that scanner buffs will still be able to hear that channel through the spring.

A number of frequencies, such as those used by the Homicide Division, Narcotics, Internal Affairs and antiterrorist groups, will be encrypted, meaning that no one except those officers involved will be able to receive transmissions.

"Those radios never will be intercepted again," Brennan said.

The new system will also eliminate the clicking officers occasionally do with their transmit buttons to deliberately interfere with transmissions. It's usually done as a joke to call attention to something funny, but the act, which is hard to trace, is prohibited by directive, and punishment is harsh. The new radios transmit a code that can immediately be traced to the user.

Under the new system, if a radio is lost or stolen (one police radio already has been), it can immediately be taken out of service by dispatchers. "For all intents and purposes, it's a brick, a very expensive brick," said Brennan of the missing radio.

In another first for the city, police officers and firefighters will be able to communicate with one another over common channels, as well as with those in other critical agencies, such as the Water Department and the Department of Licenses and Inspections. If a major emergency occurs, everyone instantly can get on the same page, Brennan said.

Deputy Fire Commissioner John T. McGrath is also upbeat over the system. "We tested the system every which way until Monday," he said. "So far, we are very pleased with the performance and the ability to enhance the safety of our people."

The busiest police division in the city for police radio is the one that covers South Philadelphia. It's made up of four districts, the First and 17th on the west side of Broad Street, and the Third and Fourth on the east side.

For radio-communications purposes, that division will soon get relief. "By the new year, absent any technical issues, we're cutting off the patch and splitting South in half," Brennan said.

The new system has had glitches, but they are being worked out, officials say.

Meanwhile, more than a few police officers in the rank and file worry about the potential delay in transmission. Some street police officers say that, when the chips are down and someone's firing at them, they don't want to have to wait a precious second to call for help.

Contact Thomas J. Gibbons Jr. at 215-854-2642 or [email-masked].

email this |

print this

| license this

| reprint this

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC=http://krd.realcities.com/js.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=krnorth&proptype=krd_city&webprop=philly&product=mld&subproduct=philly&size=button&pos=right1&c1=news&c2=local&c3=none>
</SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC=http://krd.realcities.com/js.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=krnorth&proptype=krd_city&webprop=philly&product=mld&subproduct=philly&size=tower&pos=right2&c1=news&c2=local&c3=none>
</SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC=http://krd.realcities.com/js.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=krnorth&proptype=krd_city&webprop=philly&product=mld&subproduct=philly&size=button&pos=right3&c1=news&c2=local&c3=none>
</SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC=http://krd.realcities.com/js.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=krnorth&proptype=krd_city&webprop=philly&product=mld&subproduct=philly&size=button&pos=right4&c1=news&c2=local&c3=none>
</SCRIPT>

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

more photos

Updated Tuesday, Dec 10, 2002

Spain says 125 tons a day leak from sunken tanker - 10:52 AM PST

Man faces charges in slaying of Fla. dad - 09:06 AM PST

Bush proposes rules on some pensions - 08:17 AM PST

Supreme Court dismisses death row appeal - 08:13 AM PST

Investigators blame Alaska Air in crash - 07:53 AM PST

News | Business | Sports | Entertainment | Living | Classifieds

Help | Contact Us | Site Index | Archives | Place an Ad | Newspaper Subscriptions

About Philly.com | About Realcities Network | Terms of Use | Press Center | Copyright

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC=http://krd.realcities.com/js.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=krnorth&proptype=krd_city&webprop=philly&product=mld&subproduct=philly&size=sponsor&pos=popup&c1=news&c2=local&c3=none>
</SCRIPT>

Local

Nation

World

Politics

Obituaries

Weather

Weird News

Columnists

Columnists

Financial Markets

Personal Finance

Technology

Baseball

Basketball

Colleges

Columnists

Football

Golf

High School

Hockey

Motorsports

Celebrities

Columnists

Comics & Games

Dining

Events

Horoscopes

Movies

Music

Nightlife

Performing Arts

Television

Visitors Guide

Visual Arts

Columnists

Education

Food

Health

Home

Occasions

Travel

Automotive

Employment

Personals

Real Estate