By DOMENIC POLI
Recorder Staff
ATHOL — The state department tasked with coordinating and implementing enhanced 911 service wants to avoid “a Band-Aid solution” to Athol’s emergency radio coverage in Fiscal Year 2017, according to an expert working with the town.
Gary T. Cromack, president and chief financial officer of Cromack Industries, sent an e-mail to Athol Town Manager Shaun Suhoski stating the 911 Department would like to identify high-elevation property for a second radio tower site and to use a two-site simulcast system, rather than using a temporary fix of the current emergency radios that does not fix spotty coverage.
The simulcast system would have channels for the Athol fire and police departments. The second site and simulcast system would cost roughly $600,000.
Cromack explained the departments use the ultra high frequency band for primary radio coverage throughout town. The Fire Department also uses some low-band frequencies. The UHF band needs near line of sight between communicating devices and, as a result, radio repeaters are employed and two frequencies are used. The second channel, called the down link, from the repeater out to the system’s mobiles and portables. Cromack said people use down link frequency in their scanners, enabling them to hear both sides of a conversation.
However, an examination of UHF coverage in Athol revealed the down link frequency covers only about 73 percent of the town. Suhoski told The Recorder this problem came to light due to ongoing talks about 911 dispatch regionalization.
The regionalization proposal is to consolidate Athol police and fire dispatch with that of Gardner and operate in a regional emergency communication center in the new Gardner police station. Athol and Gardner entered into an intermunicipal agreement in March 2015 to regionalize its dispatch services.
According to Suhoski, the state 911 Department can fund the radio system upgrades if Athol is part of the regional dispatch, but will not if Athol is a stand-alone dispatch center. He said this would mean local taxpayers foot the bill for upgrades.
Suhoski said the town has an obligation to provide better coverage for the safety of its employees and residents, regardless of whether dispatch is regionalized.
According to Felix Browne, the communications director for the state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, the 911 Department is tasked with coordinating and implementing enhanced 911 service and administering such service to Massachusetts.
According to Cromack, a short-term solution would be to deploy vehicular repeaters to convert UHF communications to low-band frequency, which covers all of Athol.
“State 911 would rather see the town of Athol spend state money to improve the communication system’s backbone infrastructure, at UHF, rather than shift the solution to various vehicle devices using an obsolete radio band,” he said in an e-mail. “Apart from the equipment procurement issues with low-band gear, there also exists the operational problem of what vehicles and how many.”
According to Cromack, the FY2017 budget request was partially funded by the state 911 Department in November 2016.
“A partially-funded grant from State 911 is their way of telling us that they do not expect the 911 consolidation to go-live in FY17,” he said. “Therefore, a FY2018 grant request is anticipated.”
You can reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 258. On Twitter: @DomenicPoli