Columnist Tackles Radio Upgrade

San Francisco Chronicle newspaper columnist Chip Johnson tried to explain to readers about the future Oakland (Calif.) public safety radio upgrade, noting the system would be moving to digital technology, but failing to clearly explain how it relates to interoperability, an existing regional radio network project, or even how it creates more “channels.” You’ll recall the nation’s largest urban fire occurred in Oakland and adjacent Berkeley in 1991, destroying over 3,000 homes and apartments, killing 25 people and injuring over 150. At the time, Oakland used a single repeated radio channel, with access to a single mutual aid channel. They upgraded to an Ericsson 800 MHz trunked radio system, which now serves police, fire and other city agencies. Read Johnson’s column here, and ponder if interoperability is a technical or political challenge, that surrounding jurisdictions have a mix of Motorola and M/A-COMM systems, and whether having 100 channels actually solves critical incident radio issues.