New Public Safety Radio Communications Project Facilitates Interoperability

The Camden County Freeholder Board will vote on allocating $15 million in capital funding to complete the second stage of its ongoing Public Safety Radio Communications project during its regular monthly meeting tonight, September 20, at the Lawnside Community Center. 

This is part of a $35 million project initiated by the Freeholder Board in November of 2011 that will allow the Camden County Department of Public Safety to meet a Federal Communication Commission (FCC) mandate to migrate to narrowband technology. 

Divided into stages, the project’s first stage involves the migration of fire and emergency medical services from all 37 municipalities and one municipal police department to the new 700 MHz in early 2013.  The second stage will facilitate the migration of police departments from 33 municipalities to the new system in 2014.

“Camden County’s transition to a 700 MHz radio system will allow for a state-of-the-art public safety communications platform that will enable our first responders to provide critical emergency services to our citizens in a more effective, efficient, and more importantly, a safer communications infrastructure,” said Freeholder Rodney Greco, liaison to the Camden County Department of Public Safety.  “This new system will also provide true interoperability capabilities of police, fire and EMS communications within Camden County and our surrounding region.”

When completed, the new communications system will have the capability to integrate dispatch services for all of the county’s police departments to go along with the current fire and EMS dispatch. Each participating Camden County municipality will receive new radios in each of their emergency response vehicles, new mobile units and new base stations as part of the transition. 

The new system will have numerous advantages over the county’s present system.  It will utilize microwave technology, the most reliable form of radio communication.  It will also incorporate GIS mapping software to pinpoint more accurate dispatch locations, and offer military grade encryption capabilities to prevent criminals from being alerted to police activity.  Most importantly, it will also eliminate the problem of interference from digital television stations from as far away as North Carolina and New England.

“There were close to fifty occurrences of interference reported this year alone, more than the last three years combined,” said Freeholder Greco.  “This could pose a serious concern during emergency situations if radio communication were hindered.”

The project also includes the construction of radio towers in Camden City, Cherry Hill, Gloucester Township, Lindenwold, Pennsauken, Runnemede, Voorhees, Waterford Township and Winslow Township during the first stage and up to five additional towers in the second stage.

The FCC has mandated that all of the nation’s radio communications systems operating at 470 MHz or below must be converted to a narrowband platform by January 1, 2013.  A waiver was granted by the FCC for the 470-512 MHz users who will now have to narrowband at a later date. Currently, Camden County’s radio system is split into multiple non-interoperable wavelengths:  500 MHz UHF for Police and 150 MHz VHF for fire and EMS.  This multiple wavelength system has provided effective communications service to the county for approximately 20 years.  However, due to the growth within the county and its associated public safety communications requirements, as well as growth of neighboring users of the same radio spectrum, the current system can no longer meet the demands of adequate coverage, radio traffic capacity, and expandability.  Furthermore, the UHF police network is plagued by interference from digital television stations.

As a proactive measure, the Freeholder Board appointed a Radio Steering Committee, comprised of public safety stakeholders and an experienced communications firm, V-COMM, to collaboratively develop a solution to the FCC mandate and the inherent problems associated with the current radio system.  A comprehensive plan was developed to provide the county with a robust 700 MHz radio system which would eliminate the current problems, meet the FCC mandate, and allow for continued radio expansion throughout the county.  The design of the new radio communications systems took into account the individual needs of the county including the geography and number of public safety entities.