New Jersey's Department of Law and Public Safety has purchased and deployed an initial order of 21 "Incident Commanders' Radio Interface" (ICRI) -- one for each of its county emergency management agencies -- with another 21 units pending. The ICRI is a small, rapidly configurable "bridge" for linking together typically incompatible UHF, VHF and 800 MHz radio equipment used by different agencies and jurisdictions, according to a release from Communications-Applied Technology.
The ICRI has been designed to sit in an environmentally-protected case, with slots for up to five agency radios, so that the entire waterproof interoperability package can be operated while closed.
The ICRIs have also been configured with a new feature to bypass the problem of disrupted radio communications that occurs when more than one interoperability device is used at an emergency, creating interference for the bridges and radios connected to them, rendering them useless. Equipped with Bridge Unit ID, the ICRI transmits a digitized speech message on all talk groups at preset intervals, easily identifying the unit and its owner/agency, and through its Remote Control feature the unmanned ICRI can be operated and shut off.
