Welcome to the second edition of “The 911 to the 911.” There are exciting new developments in our marketplace that can help make our communities safer. You can read about the progress being made toward interoperability and learn about new technology that’s locally available. Grant funding is always a topic of interest, so we’ll also highlight some of the messages that were recently delivered at the Homeland Security Conference.
1.
Upcoming Grant Changes 2.
Is the Midwest a Likely Target for Terrorism? 3.
Looking for a Good Book? 4.
The Illinois Terrorism Task Force Steps Up Big! 5.
Local Public Health Departments Join Hospitals on Statewide Radio Network 6.
Deploying Mobile/Portable ACU-1000 Type Interoperability Devices 7.
Broadband Mobile Data is Here! 8.
Integrating PCs with Your Radio System 9.
Does your Radio Console Need an Upgrade? 10.
Paying too Much for Leased Circuits? 1. Upcoming Grant Changes: At the Iowa Governor’s Homeland Security Conference in July, changes were announced that should impact every county’s future ability to secure grant funding. We can no longer expect grants to be formula-driven, whereby pools of money will be distributed according to geography, population and other demographics. Instead, the grants can be better classified as “competitive,” based upon qualification factors such as: · Assessed Threat – How will your assessed threats be prioritized against other grant requests? As you would expect, large metropolitan areas believe that formula-driven methods have disproportionately distributed too much money to rural America, at the expense of the population and industry centers of our country. Instead of arguing with this concept, we just have to recognize that there is now more competition for funding and we have to plan accordingly. · Fighting Terrorism – Will the requested funds be directed at preventing or responding to CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive) threats? These are the priorities for Homeland Security funds, not natural disasters. · Regional Planning – Regional plans are recognized as being more comprehensive and cost effective in their approach. Improvements to individual agencies or organizations won’t be a priority unless it’s clear that the improvements are in support of a more strategic, regional plan. It should be obvious that assessing threats regionally and developing regional plans will also make us more competitive against major metropolitan areas. · Dual Use – Although fighting terrorism is the priority, solutions that will additionally benefit day-to-day operations are encouraged. <Back to top of page>
2. Is the Midwest a Likely Target for Terrorism? Perhaps all of us find some comfort in the anonymity of rural America. Certainly, New York, Washington DC, LA, Chicago, Houston are at much greater risk than us. Are they really? Terrorists could have their most devastating impact by hitting our economy. And how could they do that? Hitting our food supply. As Americans we pay a smaller portion of our income on food than any other country in the world. Approximately 10% of our income goes toward food while other countries spend upwards of 25-50%. What we save on food we’re able to spend on other things – clothes, homes, entertainment, etc. This is what drives our economy to be the best in the world. Contamination of our food supply would instantly impact the commodity markets. Homegrown food would be pulled from the market. Exports would be suspended. The drop in supply would cause prices to shoot up. Farmers would lose their income. It’s a snowballing effect that impacts every American. We’ve seen the impact on state and federal budgets when the economy is bad. We couldn’t afford to fight terrorism at home or abroad, thus making us more vulnerable. Consider the importance of Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Illinois on the food supply of our nation. Here are just a few statistics about Iowa and Nebraska: Iowa is: · #1 in Corn production with 17% of the total national production · #1 in Pork production. One in every 3.5 lbs. of pork is shipped from an Iowa plant · #1 in Egg production, approximately 10 billion eggs per year · #1 in Soybean production · #3 in Total Agricultural Exports Nebraska is: · #1 in Commercial Livestock slaughter · #1 in Commercial Cattle slaughter · #3 in the number of total Cattle and Calves · #6 in the Pork Industry · Corn is Nebraska’s top cash crop · #1 in Great Northern Beans · #3 in several Grain categories Shipping along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers also has a tremendous impact on the nation’s economy, as do the major Interstates. Although Chicago, Houston, LA and New York may be more visible targets, we are anything but anonymous. With bio-terrorism perhaps the greatest threat we face, our homeland security efforts are vitally important. <Back to top of page> 3. Looking for a good book? Bio-terrorists strike a rural Iowa beef production facility with plans to contaminate a food supply that feeds the nation! Swarms of local, state and federal agencies must work together to protect the citizens of Nations County, Iowa and all the U.S. Former Clayton County Deputy Donald Harstad captivates his audience with a riveting tale, A Long December, that seems all-too possible. You’ll love this book! You can’t help but contemplate the potential implications of such an occurrence. Could this really happen? What if this terrorist plan had been successful? And how can we prevent this? Harstad leveraged his own experiences and got assistance from Ellen Gordon, former Administrator of Iowa Homeland Security; Kevin Techau, Iowa Commissioner of Public Safety; Penny Westphal, Director of the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy; and doctors, nurses and KGAN to help in the preparation of his novel. <Back to top of page> 4. The Illinois Terrorism Task Force Steps Up Big! The Illinois Terrorism Task Force offered to provide one STARCOM21 800 MHz trunked radio base station free of charge to every police, fire, EMS, public health agency and dispatch center in Illinois. STARCOM21 is the wireless voice radio system being implemented statewide by the State Police and it offers the possibility of interoperability of all public safety disciplines in Illinois. The offer included hardware, basic installation and five years of basic access to the statewide system. The ITTF considers STARCOM21 to be an integral piece of Illinois’ statewide interoperable communications plan. For more detail on the ITTF offer, visit www.ilea.org, then “Forms”. Iowa has its own task force assembled to evaluate interoperability and to provide Governor Vilsack with recommendations for a state strategy. Recommendations are expected by early October. <Back to top of page> 5. Local Public Health Departments Join Hospitals on Iowa Statewide Radio Network: It’s now official—96 county public health departments in Iowa are joining the statewide 800 MHz trunked radio network that connects all of the state’s hospitals, the State Emergency Operations Center, Poison Control, the University Hygienic Lab, the Emergency Communications Center and medical helicopters. The remaining three county public health agencies are co-located in their local hospital where they will participate by sharing a radio with the hospital. Separate talk groups are established for each of the state’s six regions, as well as for a “Statewide All Call” group. Radios will be installed between now and the end of the year. The implementation of statewide radio communication capabilities and the Health Alert Network are examples of the important steps being made by the Iowa Department of Public Health to address the threats we face in the Midwest. <Back to top of page>
6. Deploying Portable/Mobile ACU-1000 Type Interoperability Devices Imagine you’ve prioritized the need for an interoperability device that will provide on-scene interoperability between the commanders of several fire and law enforcement agencies. For that matter, the device will be flexible enough for use on virtually all incident types and can include radio users on any band, cellular and telephony. Finally, you’ve received the support and funding you needed to make it a reality, and it has arrived. Great timing—it’s campaign season and the candidates are coming into your jurisdiction. What a great application. What now? Plug-n-play, right? Can other departments show up and hand you one of their portables to plug into your device? Maybe you already have their frequencies and they’re programmed into a radio you’ve dedicated to this new device. This is great. You’re a hero! Uh-oh. It doesn’t work. Some audio is too loud; others are too soft to copy. The beginning and ends of transmissions are cut-off. Radios are causing interference with each other. Users of different systems are transmitting at the same time, but only one transmission is getting through to others. Users think they’re being heard but they’re not. Organizations are tying up each other’s systems. It’s a disaster. Who bought this thing? To the surprise of many, these devices require a great deal of set-up prior to deployment. And be ready to make tweaks and changes required. Do things ever go as planned? Someone needs to be experienced with the set-up and know how to modify the configuration settings on-the-fly. Dubuque has had their ACU-1000 since June, and they’ve successfully used it for their Grand Excursion riverfront party and visits by President Bush and Senator Kerry. However, they purposefully avoided using it for the first visit by President Bush in June because they hadn’t thoroughly tested the system nor trained. Unquestionably, a wise decision. They had three different training sessions until everyone was comfortable controlling it via the laptop. Manual control would have to come later. Suggestions were made in each session on how to make it easier to set-up and use, like using detailed labels and color-coding antennas. After conquering the initial set-up and learning how to manage the configurations, subsequent uses have gone very smoothly. It’s also important to pick the right device for your application. There are tactical units, transportable units, and fixed/mobile units. There are manual control and software control options. Some devices can be remotely controlled, others can’t. If you’d like to learn more about these devices and better understand the control issues that you’ll face, here’s a white paper that may help. Using Interoperability Devices (1.8MB) Here’s another third-party white paper that generically compares different approaches to achieving interoperability. Whether tactical, transportable or mobile, ACU-type devices are just one approach. There may be other approaches to consider that would be more suitable for what you’re trying to accomplish.
Interoperability Approaches (221KB) <Back to top of page>
7. Broadband Mobile Data is here! It starts out as a routine traffic stop, but the situation quickly turns worse. A small chain of events finds the officer alone and in a struggle with three adult males. Several minutes can go by without anyone being aware of the danger to the officer. Many agencies have video cameras in vehicles that can record an incident like this, but how will it help the officer? The recording is on a disk in the trunk and can’t be reviewed until it’s too late. What if this video was available to dispatchers or supervisors as the encounter unfolded? Live video. How much faster could you provide help to the officer? Broadband data (256Kbps or higher) in a mobile environment makes this possible. These are data rates more than 25 times faster than most of the mobile data in use today. Live video feeds can be available to dispatch, the operations center or to other field workers. You can instantly share photos, mug shots, fingerprints, building plans, occupancy records, hazmat information and virtually any other form of data that can help all law enforcement and fire. It’s finally available locally…and it’s affordable! Other city departments may also be able to help share in the costs. The street department, human services and municipal utilities can improve their operations by sharing information with their mobile workers too. You can establish your own mobile data infrastructure, share it across as many or as few departments as desired, and provide the necessary security you’ll need to keep your information protected. <Back to top of page>
8. Integrating PCs with your Radio Systems Why would you want to use a PC to get access to your radio system? There could be several reasons: · Your radio is out of your coverage area but you still need to communicate. When a radio isn’t within the coverage area of its network, it might as well be a brick. You can’t talk or monitor traffic. Have you ever had an emergency surface at home while you’re out of town? Sure, you have phones at your disposal, but you can’t monitor what’s happening across the radios, much less talk to them. Some emergencies may overwhelm the cellular networks, preventing you from reaching anyone away from a working landline phone. What if it was impossible to gather some people into your Emergency Operations Center and they need to participate remotely? Radio will be your primary means of communicating. Wouldn’t it be beneficial for these people to participate, no matter where they’re physically located? · Interfacing your system to your computer network can dramatically increase the alternatives for back-up dispatch locations. Not only could you set up in virtually any area of your building, but virtually any location with internet access could act as dispatch or command and control, even in the next town, county or state. PSAPs could not only back each other up answering 911 calls, but also provide direct radio communications to each other’s agencies. Hospitals could back up each other’s communications too. · Consolidated dispatch may be more feasible. The Forestry Service utilizes consolidated dispatch covering extremely large landmasses without the need for expensive, dedicated leased lines. Security and maintenance operations of hospitals and businesses could function the same way. Utilities often have multiple dispatch centers and cover large geographies. Consolidated operations are often considered when evaluating ways to improve service and efficiency. · Users of multi-site, wide-area radio networks rely upon a centralized switching site that interconnects the sites. When connectivity is lost between any site and the centralized switch, users on that site lose communication with users on all the other sites. Integrating your systems across a computer network can provide a back up means of wide-area communications between users. A computer can patch together sites without going through the centralized switch. · Some entities may be able to eliminate dedicated leased circuits that are used to connect to radio systems based at other locations. This technology is applicable to hospital networks, utilities, the DNR, Public Safety and many other types of radio users. Radio-computer integration is also a widely used approach to interoperability across different radio systems, bands, brands and geography. In the May 2004 Issue of “The 9-1-1 to the 9-1-1” you’ll find a brief introduction to interoperability using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). That issue can be found
<here>. <Back to top of page>
9. Does your radio console need an upgrade? Do you want to upgrade your DOS-based Zetron radio console, but lack enough funds to do so? Now may be your last chance to two-step an upgrade of your legacy system. A two-step upgrade is an approach that would enable you to fund the upgrade over multiple grant periods or budgets, but it’s only available through the end of this year. The first step is to upgrade to a Windows 2000 system. Such an upgrade could last several years in your communication center. The next step would be to upgrade to Windows XP, which also replaces many back room components. For communities that are tight on funds, a two-step approach would enable you to postpone the back room replacements until you upgraded to XP. (Postponing a third to one-half the cost). Come January when the Windows 2000 upgrade is no longer available, agencies will have to go to XP and immediately replace the back office components. <Back to top of page> 10. Paying too Much for Leased Circuits? Agencies may need high speed circuits between buildings that share data systems, phone systems or internet services. Usually, the cost of leased lines that enable this sharing are expensive and offer limited speed. If you feel you may be paying too much or need higher capacity, ask about wireless circuits (800-722-6643). Your buildings may be eligible for wireless services that are extremely reliable, cost less than other leased circuits and provide more flexible data rates. Your applications will be unaffected, but your users will notice the improved performance and you can save money! <Back to top of page> | 
