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Wireless Week Article
Agencies To Operate Racom System
Officials Opt For Shared Network In Quad
Cities Area
By Bruce Felps
Illustrating the trend toward shared networks for public-safety
agencies, Racom Corp. is
installing a new 800 MHz digital trunked radio system to cover the Quad Cities
area straddling the border between Illinois and Iowa. The cities of
Moline and East Moline, Ill., issued the joint request for proposal, which was
won by Racom. According to Vic Endress, captain of the Moline Police
Department, area officials studied a single public-safety dispatch system for
the Quad Cities and enlisted support for the project from all involved
communities.
The new two-way radio system covering the Moline and East
Moline area includes both cities’ police, fire, emergency medical and public
works departments. Endress said Moline’s police department will
receive 135 radios, the fire department will use 81 and public works will have
68.
The East Moline Police Department is slated for 64 radios,
with 29 scheduled for the fire department and 68 for public works. Endress did
not specify the number of radios reserved for either city’s emergency medical
departments.
Kevin Thornton, vice president of Racom, said the system
allows each department to partition frequency ranges for specific talk groups.
For situations that require agencies to cross jurisdictions, the departments
have clear channels to communicate with each other.
However, the proposal for a two-way radio network was not
placed on a countywide ballot by the Rock Island County Board Administration
Committee. After it failed to make the referendum, a committee of five people
representing Moline and East Moline continued working on the project, Endress
said.
The cities had to find alternate funding, he said. Moline
passed a $10 million bond election that secured $2 million for the 800 MHz
trunked system, with the rest reserved for improvements to the city’s
infrastructure. He said East Moline raised the city’s property tax rate to fund
its share of the project.
The inter-community task force developed two requests for
proposal, he added. One RFP called for bids for two individual dispatch centers
and the other for a mutual facility.
Endress said Racom, located in Marshalltown, Iowa, entered
the most cost-effective bid and won the contract over Ericsson Inc. and
Motorola Inc. Racom’s cost analysis indicated a savings of more than $400,000
to install one dispatch center, and city officials opted for the shared
network, he said.
Racom also is providing an 800 MHz digital trunked system to
the Fort Dodge (Iowa) Correctional Facility, which begins operation April 15. Warden John Thalacker said the institution is the state’s
first to have an 800 MHz system capable of transmitting voice, data, dispatch
and vehicle tracking signals.
Thalacker said the prison could have created major problems
for a two-way system because of the facility’s reinforced concrete walls and
metal gates. According to Thornton, the construction material of the prison did
not pose a problem to Racom because the company has a transmission tower less
than one-quarter mile from the prison’s walls. Thornton said that at 800 MHz,
signals penetrate the thick walls, so the company did not have to install an
in-building antenna system.
Reprinted with permission from
the March 30, 1998 issue of Wireless Week
copyright 1998 by Cahners Business Information. All Rights Reserved.
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