State helps local authorities in radio switchover

McLeod County law enforcement agencies and emergency responders are working on modernizing their radio communications, but are still only in the early stages of the project.

By Dec. 31, 2012, the Federal Communications Commission requires all agencies to migrate to narrow-band systems. However, it’s up to local governments to decide how they’ll get there.

Minnesota is taking the lead by building an 800 MHz network backbone of towers, microwave equipment and computer controllers across the state. The state Division of Emergency Communications Networks won’t officially push local agencies to join the 800 MHz network. But it will present them with pros and cons to the various technologies out there.

Scott Wiggins, the division’s director, met with representatives of several local agencies last week in Hutchinson. Wiggins said the state will begin a study within the next month or two to help agencies across the state compare analog VHF, digital VHF or 800 MHz systems.

“We want the study to show the pros and cons of each approach,” he said. “Apples to apples to apples is what we want to compare.”

McLeod County Sheriff Scott Rehmann noted the 2012 deadline is a few years away, “but we wanted to start planning now because it’s going to be a big project.”

“It would probably take one and a half years if we started today,” Rehmann added. “A lot of that includes grant writing because we want to lessen the tax impact.”

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com)