Joseph D. Plummer, director of the county Office of Fire and Emergency Management, said the new radio system is a state-of-the-art, high-tech system that completely outpaces the system the county’s first responders have had to rely on since the 1970s.
“Its like going from tin cans and string to a cell phone,” he said. “The difference is night and day.”
Now, the $20 million dollar project, of which only $5 million had to come from Jefferson County’s coffers, is up and running, and first responders across the county now have access to a radio system many generations newer than the past.
“We were basically using 1950s technology installed in the 1970s into the 2020s,” Mr. Plummer said.
The project began in 2012 under then-Jefferson County Board Chair Carolyn D. Fitzpatrick, who formed a committee of county elected officials and senior staff to replace the aging, traditional point-to-point infrastructure the county had been using for more than 40 years. A decision was made to install what’s formally called a P25 UHF trunked radio system, and $24 million was authorized to be spent on the project.
A trunked radio system relies on a central computer to designate channels of communication, whereas a traditional radio system has set channels on which to communicate. The result of this new system is much wider bands of communication, on which first responders will find easy access to a signal in 97% of locations in Jefferson County, and much more bandwidth to communicate with more departments and across agencies.
The project was completed over the course of about 10 years, with 12 new radio towers installed across the county. The county also purchased $3 million in new radios for every fire department, ambulance and local police department.
“That wasn’t the plan, we were all dead against it,” said Legislator Philip N. Reed Sr., who previously chaired the General Services Committee and has been a member of the radio subcommittee for the entire project.
“But we saw what the savings were going to be if we did buy them all at once ourselves, and the system discount on top of it,” said Legislator Anthony J. Doldo, who has led the radio subcommittee. “It came down to, the taxpayer is going to end up paying either way, and the county could do it cheaper or give it to the locals to do for more money.”
Now, county and town highway department workers can communicate with each other, and with fire, EMS and police agencies, all through the same system by simply selecting an option on their radio. In the event of a large-scale emergency that requires multiple agencies to communicate, special event channels can be used for everyone to communicate together.
Individual radio holders can communicate clear across the county, from one end to the other. Mr. Plummer said that’s one of the better advantages of this new system.
“If Adams Center was talking, Adams couldn’t hear on the old system,” Mr. Plummer said. “With the new system, you’re hearing Adams, [Alexandria] Bay, Carthage, Oxbow.”
Mr. Plummer said many people on the new system have joked it seems people do more talking than anything else, but in reality they’re hearing all the talking that’s been self-contained until now.
At most, the system has had 14% of its capacity used since it was brought online in March 2021. Agencies have joined over time, and as of Sept. 1, every agency that uses the public safety radio system has at least begun the process of joining the system.
According to Mr. Plummer, the system manufacturer, Motorola, has agreed to a 15-year maintenance contract, but the county anticipates it will get many, many more years out of the system after that contract is up.
“The model radio may change, but the concept of operation will not change, and the infrastructure may need a refresh but the concept of an IP-based system will be with us for a good long time. It will exceed our careers,” Mr. Plummer said.
Identical systems are used in Onondaga, Oswego, Cayuga, Madison and Oneida counties, which are all part of the Central New York Interoperable Communications Consortium. That consortium shares the $300,000-per-year maintenance costs of a central “brain” computer in Onondaga County, which is the core of the entire system.
“If we couldn’t get on that core, the price tag would have been another $1.5 million,” Mr. Plummer said. “The other side of that is, the $300,000 a year for maintenance on that core is divided by six.”
The interoperability also means that the six counties can communicate with each other through the system, from one end to the other, with little signal degradation. In the north country, where it’s not uncommon for ambulances to drive all the way to Syracuse, or storms to cover multiple counties, Mr. Plummer said that has proven to be invaluable.
There’s redundancy built in, so if the Onondaga County “brain” loses power or is taken offline, Jefferson County’s own “mini-brain” will keep the county-wide system up and running.
The system is essentially fully operating now, with a few bugs left to work out. As the committee of officials tasked with this program looks back at the decade they’ve spent pulling it all together, they all said they’re very proud of the results.
They’re especially proud of the way they managed to fund the project. From an initial price of about $24 million, the group found several avenues for savings to bring the price down significantly. By buying much of the equipment for the radio towers through the county itself, finding grants and negotiating firmly with vendors, the project cost about $20 million to complete, with $5 million coming from Jefferson County.
“That’s the wow factor,” Mr. Plummer said. “By taking our time and doing this right, we were able to save over $15 million.”
Mr. Doldo said the credit goes back to the members of the radio committee, which have changed over the years but included Mr. Plummer, Mr. Reed, County Administrator Robert F. Hagemann III, County Board Chair William W. Johnson and Mrs. Fitzpatrick, who started the entire project. She died in April 2020.
“The whole committee really did the work here, and managed to get us an exceptional system,” Mr. Plummer said.
©2022 Watertown Daily Times, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
