Thursday, June 8, 2000

From www.phillynews.com

Police radio 'dead spots' a concern in Montco Officers lost contact during a training exercise in a school. A system upgrade would cost millions.

By Matt Archbold INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF

In the early afternoon of Aug. 4, 1999, just months after the Columbine High School massacre, tactical squads and dozens of Montgomery County police officers - some dressed in fatigues - swarmed Wissahickon High School in a simulated response to a school shooting and hostage situation. Once inside, it was quickly apparent that there was a problem. The police radio system the county had spent about $5 million to install five years earlier did not penetrate the building's thick walls, leaving the officers inside the school with only static and silence. Hardly the level of communications necessary in a real crisis. It is a problem that could cost Montgomery County millions of dollars and take years to fix, said County Commissioners Chairman Michael Marino, who was district attorney during the August exercise, when officers were forced to make do with walkie-talkies and cell phones. "On the surface, the system seemed wonderful. It is not," Marino said. Nor is the problem an isolated one. Police departments throughout the region encounter "dead spots" and an inability to communicate with officers inside buildings, said Towamencin Police Chief Joseph Kirschner, who also serves on the county Police Radio Committee. In May 1996, the county commissioners approved spending $4.8 million on a 800-megahertz system so that officers could communicate with one another all over the county. Kenneth Shuler, director of emergency dispatch and 911 for Montgomery County, said the county knew it was buying incomplete coverage. Motorola Inc. offered a system that would have provided full coverage of the county for $18 million, Shuler said, but the commissioners opted to spend $5 million and improve the system over the years. "The commissioners at the time chose to put in a first phase that offered coverage for light-building, wood-frame residential houses," Shuler said. "We knew that any heavier buildings would be a problem. "Our priority is to have 100 percent coverage, but it's a money issue," he said. Currently, the system depends on nine towers throughout the county, with plans to construct seven more, to bring the total to 16. Shuler said he believed that for the county to have 100 percent coverage, more than 20 towers would be required. Just adding towers, however, may not solve the problem. Chester County has 16 towers and has spent close to $13 million, but it experiences similar problems, said Ed Atkins, that county's emergency-services director. Police in Chester County have discovered difficulties in communicating through heavy structures as well as through the metal that is often found in warehouses, he said. But the erratic behavior of the 800-megahertz system has not seemed to affect its popularity among other police departments. Cherry Hill's police department, for one, is about to buy it, said Lt. Mike Morgan. Morgan said that the township was requesting a medium-density coverage plan, but that one concern was having strong coverage in the Cherry Hill Mall. Each of the companies bidding on the project offer mathematical models to prove 100 percent coverage, but Morgan said he would need a little more proof than numbers on a page, because sooner or later lives may depend on the radio coverage. "Forget the mathematical model," he said. "Let's walk in the building and see if we get coverage."

Matt Archbold's e-mail address is marchbold@phillynews.com

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