When Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace began his career with the department as a deputy in 1981, handheld radios were not a part of the standard equipment.

“Once I stepped out of the car I was immediately out of communication, and that was not uncommon for any of the deputies,” said Pace. “I went into investigation in 1989, and it was while I was in the detective bureau that our department first began issuing handheld radios to everybody.”

Today, all emergency calls in the city and county are dispatched from a single center to radios owned by all area agencies — sheriff’s department, police, fire and ambulance — which can all talk to each other. The system also provides immediate contact with neighboring counties and state agencies.

“What we have now is the type of system that every emergency responder in the country envies,” Pace said. “In any emergency we can communicate with other agencies in real time without interruption. The system we have now is light years ahead of where we were in the ’70s and ’80s.” 

Nonetheless, technological advances are outpacing the city and county’s once state-of-the-art radio system, said Bill Ford, information technology specialist for the City of Vicksburg.

Over the next six years, Ford said it is likely Vicksburg and Warren County will have to replace all 1,000 handheld and vehicle radios used by emergency personnel and municipal employees at an estimated cost of $5 million.

“Motorola, our primary provider in the city and county, has informed us they will not be able to support or repair the generation of radios we have beyond 2016,” said Ford. “It’s like anything else technology wise, equipment has to be replaced to meet the demands of new technology. Our radios are just nearing the end of their product life.”

The 800 megahertz system now in use was the most advanced when purchased and installed in the mid-1990s, and remains far more modern than many emergency radio systems in the state.

Ken Coleman, Warren County information technology director, said it may be a good idea to start planning for possible changes in radio service, but stressed no mandate has come down.

“It’s good to be prepared for what’s coming down the pike, but we have not received any written notification that mandates our radios need to be replaced,” Coleman said. “I don’t think we’re at a point where we need to be planning to scrap our existing system.”

If they do need to be replaced, Ford said the new radios will cost roughly $5,000 a piece. The first of the new models was to arrive this week and be installed in a Vicksburg Fire Department vehicle, Ford said.

An additional 39 radios are in some stage of being purchased, the majority of them through the federal Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program, which in 2007 dedicated roughly $968 million to communications nationwide through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In Mississippi, about $20 million is available in PSIC grants administered by the Mississippi Wireless Communication Commission, said Mike Womack, commission vice-chairman.

Warren County and Vicksburg entered into an interlocal agreement in June 2009 to begin jointly applying for PSIC grant funds, which require a 20 percent local match. On Feb. 10 the city signed off on purchasing 34 radios through Motorola at a total cost of $190,000, the local match being about $20,000 for the city and county each.

Beyond the radios, Ford said the city will likely need to upgrade support systems at the five tower sites in the city and county at a cost of roughly $750,000 per site — bringing the total investment over the next six years to an estimated $8.75 million.

“It’s a living, growing system,” said Ford. “There are constant improvements to be made and constant advances in the technology. We’re doing something every day to try to keep up and have the best communications possible. It’s an ongoing cost, but a necessary cost. Communication is the key to the success of all of our essential services in the city and county.”

In tight fiscal times, Ford said the city and county will be partnering to apply for as many grants as possible to pay for the new radios.

“We don’t have a specific budget for new radios. Everything from this point on has to be a line item,” said Ford. “So, we’re looking for grant money. If we could get even 80/20 matching grants that would cut our cost to $1 million from $5 million.”

The city began a roughly $2 million investment in the mid-1990s to switch to a digital communications format with a central, computer-controlled system. It was among only a handful of counties in Mississippi making the commitment to better communications at the time, which coincided with the influx of vast new revenue from casino development in the early 1990s. The city went online with the new system, referred to as an advanced trunked system in the industry, in January 1998. The county hooked onto the system months later, Ford said.

“We were 15, 20 years ahead of almost everybody in the state,” he said. “The state is finally catching up with us now, and the technology they’re installing is probably a decade ahead of where we are now. ” 

About 15 of the 82 counties in the state have invested in advanced trunk systems, said Ford. The state is in the midst of installing $160 million worth of towers and computer switching systems to extend digital trunk systems to the remaining counties, Womack said. The new statewide communications network is called the Mississippi Wireless Integrated Network, or MSWIN for short. It was inspired by Hurricane Katrina, specifically the problem with interagency communication in the aftermath of the August 2005 storm.

“Each county is getting at least one tower, some are getting two — there’s easily 120 or 130 towers going up across the state,” Womack said. “We’re about halfway through the towers. We’re finished on the Coast for the most part, and most of the towers going in around Jackson are up, too. We have set up standards that require any new radios purchased in the state will be comparable with this new digital system.” 

Vicksburg is slated to have two towers erected by the state in the next six months, said Ford. All of the new radios purchased with PSIC grants must be MSWIN compatible. Coleman said only the 34 radios on order are 100 percent compatible. Others currently in use could easily be reprogrammed to become compatible, he said, but it’s not clear what the cost would be.

“At this point we don’t have all the answers,” Ford said. “I’m still trying to figure out what the questions are. That’s why we’ll begin meeting with Motorola and the wireless commission in the coming months to see what our options are.”

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com