Grant to aid county communications
County fire departments will soon have new technology thanks to a FEMA Assistance for Firefighters Grant.
The grant, applied for in 2009 by Franklin County Emergency Management Agency Director Roy Gober, was awarded in May of this year and will provide $725,600 to the county fire association.
While the grant was processed through the Burnout Volunteer Fire Department, it will benefit all 14 fire departments in the county.
According to Gober, the money will be used to purchase 87 new radios for the fire trucks, 278 handheld portable radios, 110 pagers, 10 fixed station radios and four new repeaters.
These new radios will replace the older radios used by the departments that function based on technology that was developed in the 1960s.
According to Gober, when radio technology was developed, an FCC license would provide access to a certain frequency that was transmitted within a bandwidth of 2500 kilohertz, which has been the standard up until now.
Since demand for radios frequencies has gotten greater, the FCC has cut the transmitted frequency to a bandwidth of 1250 kilohertz (narrowing the bandwidth) so that the amount of licenses can double.
Gober said that this change should satisfy the demand for licenses for years to come.
“To be compliant with FCC regulations all fire departments will have to go to narrow band by 2013,” Gober said.
“If we didn’t have new radios, that would mean in a best case scenario, every radio the local fire departments had would have to be reprogrammed. In a worst case scenario, every radio would have to be scrapped and the departments would have to buy new radios themselves.
“By getting this grant, it saves our fire departments from being responsible for coming up with the money for these radios, and that really makes a difference since a lot of the volunteer departments are usually strapped for money anyway.”
Another advantage to the new radios is the fact they will be digital instead of analog, which will be beneficial in several ways.
“Digital radios will cut out the bleed over from other departments’ frequencies that often occurs with the older radios, and this will provide us with cleaner, clearer communication,” Gober said. “It also will allow for more privacy because these frequencies won’t get picked up by scanners, which is important in a situation where there is a fatality.”
Gober added that while having digital technology is not required right now, there has been talk about it being required in the future, so this grant allows the departments to be compliant with the narrow banding and will save them from having to be compliant with going digital in the future.
“It’s really beneficial for us to be completely compliant now because it will save these departments from having to dig back into their pockets in a few years and make sure all their technology is digital,” he said. “We want to take advantage of any way we have available that will save our departments money.”
Gober said that they have applied for new licenses from the FCC and that as soon as they get the licenses, the radios will be purchased, programmed and distributed to the different fire departments in the county. He estimated that all this should be completed by January.
“We had to have a common communication system throughout the county, and this grant was the best way to do it all at one time,” he said.
“We’re just glad that we’ve got the opportunity to take the departments in Franklin County into the 21st century. Having the latest technology not only benefits the fire departments but it benefits the people in the community we serve, so it’s a good thing for everyone involved.”