Last March Battle Creek (Mich.) police replaced an old VHF radio system and spent $4 million on gear to join the state-wide 800 MHz trunked radio system. But now the city and Emmett Township say the system doesn’t provide adequate coverage, and are looking for solutions. The Calhoun County Sheriff says they haven’t experienced any problems with the Motorola system, which serves the surrounding territory. Technicians are diagnosing the problems, but aren’t sure if it’s related to towers, high traffic or the system’s encryption. Police union president Joe Wilder was blunt. “They spent millions of dollars to replace a system that wasn’t broken and it is crap,” he said. Read more here.
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The system is still broken but they don’t want to discuss it as it will put the purchasers in bad political light. They told the officers not to discuss it as a security issue. They often have to rely on cell phones to make contact with officers. They will seek thousands of tax dollars to try to fix a “busted” system. This was a political move orchestrated by the Sheriff.
The city is spending about $5000,000 a year to pay rent on a system they will never own and don’t need. They need to go back to a UHF or VHF trunking system but don’t want to admit a mistake. I don’t know where the local news media is on this story. No official will admit problems. In an FOIA request, the 911 Director stated he does not keep records of the system failure or when dispatchers need to resort to cell-phone communications. The 911 Board is seeking additional taxes from the phone lines to pay for this overly costly operation which is broken and poorly managed without detailed record keeping of system down conditions. Perhaps you want to revisit this story.
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