Subject: [NEXTEL-1] PUBLIC SAFETY RADIO SYSTEMS: HISTORY, PROBLEMS, AND PROMISES

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 17:15:24 -0500

PUBLIC SAFETY RADIO SYSTEMS: HISTORY, PROBLEMS, AND PROMISES

by Thomas J. Cowper

Published in Police Forum
November 2000

The field of communications is one of the most essential
functional areas of policing, yet it is one of the most
unappreciated and misunderstood aspects of law enforcement
there is. A plethora of screw-ups, foul-ups, problems, and
debacles are associated with it, yet it is the lifeline linking
the 9-1-1 system with the police service delivery personnel in
the field: police officers, sheriff’s deputies, state troopers and
highway patrol officers, and federal agents. Public Safety Radio
is a most complex arena involving high technology that is rapidly
evolving into higher technology; the sometimes volatile field of
federal, state, and local politics; transnational commercial
systems vendors; and a federal regulatory system geared up to
support everyone else before public safety.

Our collective ability to do our jobs is dependent on
communication, internally, externally, across jurisdictions and
between agencies. We are in the information business in an
information age. Voice communications and NCIC data is the
tip of the iceberg. Available in real time over the airwaves, the
leading technologies of our newest radio systems now include
Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) data, mugshots, scanned 
images, fingerprints, barcode information from drivers licenses 
and vehicle registrations.

The employment of this technology is critical to law enforcement
and public safety. Cops need to have a much better understanding
of the complexities of the technology that supports them on the
street, yet most agencies give little emphasis, minuscule resources,
and little creative thought about how to use technology effectively.

While some departments have improved, many are still in the stone
age when it comes to effective wireless communications for public
safety response operations.

This article is a non-technical overview of the issues related to 
public safety radio communications. The article draws upon my 
experience as a non-technical radio user who was suddenly placed 
in a position of responsibility for translating public safety users’ 
needs to the technical community, along with informing police 
officers of the technical limitations and potential possibilities of 
current and future technology.

The article appeals to the generalist  for two reasons. First, the
technical nature of the material is extremely complex and does
not lend itself well to simple or short explanations. Second,
although I am not a communications technician or a radio
engineer, I do spend a great deal of time translating engineer-speak
into understandable language for police and governmental
executives. Much of this article may not pass an engineer’s
definition of the technical specifications of radio systems, but
it suffices for those non-engineers who care about where their
lifeline comes from and why.

http://www.capital.net/~tcowper/Public%20Safety%20Radio%20Systems%20-%20History%20Problems%20and%20Promises.pdf

About the Author – Thomas J. Cowper is a lieutenant with the
New York State Police. From January, 1997 through April, 2000,
Lieutenant Cowper was the Director of Communications for the
State Police and a principle participant in New York State’s
Statewide Communications Network project. In April Lieutenant
Cowper was assigned full-time as an Assistant Director to the
SCN.

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