Iowa police, fire agencies work to meet narrowband deadline

The Iowa State Patrol will improvise its way around gaps in radio coverage, and local emergency responders and their contractors are rushing to meet a New Year's deadline to free broadcast spectrum for wireless devices.

“We are extremely busy helping people meet the deadline,” said Dave Burger, general manager of Waterloo-based Radio Communications Company. “We usually take Dec. 31 off at noon, that ain't happening. Our guys have been working Saturdays and long hours to get this done.”

Two-way radio users have until midnight Monday to “narrowband” their transmissions to double the broadcast frequencies available for mobile devices. Private companies passed the extra cost on to their customers, an option public users lack.

Most Iowa agencies will meet the rule, but 10 to 15 percent, including those in Linn County, have received waivers from the Federal Communications Commission granting them extra time, said Jim Bogner, coordinator of the Iowa Statewide Interoperable Communications Board.

“We've been talking about it for two and a half years,” said Tom Berger, Epworth's fire chief, Dubuque County's emergency management coordinator, and local fire departments' representative on the state communications board. “Everybody's well aware of it. It's another unfunded mandate that's tough for some departments to meet.”

Berger said his county's agencies will meet the deadline thanks to a $200,000 federal grant.

The communications gear at Johnson County's joint dispatch center, opened in 2010, meets the federal requirement.

Because narrowband range is about 20 percent less than older systems', the state will have to erect up to 100 new broadcast towers to supplement its current 31, State Patrol Capt. Curt Henderson said.

“We lost signal when we narrowbanded,” Henderson said. “Those areas now have a more profound dead spot - it's difficult for some of our officers to communicate with our communications centers.”

Henderson said the state patrol has an FCC waiver through November.

Linn County, Cedar Rapids, and Marion, cooperating on a new $18.2 million system, were granted another year by the FCC. Marion Police Chief Harry Daugherty, also chairman of the county E-911 board, hopes to have it operational by summer.

Counties' emergency communications systems are funded through a surcharge on landline telephones, numbers of which are dropping as people switch to cellphones. The state also assesses a 65-cent monthly fee on cellphone bills, which is distributed to counties.

For Linn County, those two sources meant $389,189 in the last fiscal year. Voters in November approved doubling the county's fee to 50 cents after rejecting an increase to $1 two years earlier.

Linn County supervisors voted to borrow up to $8 million for the county's share of the new system, and the county bought $246,000 worth of compatible radios for three rural ambulance services. Cedar Rapids ($8.1 million) and Marion ($23.65 million) also are borrowing for their costs.

Crews from Radio Communications finished installing Tama County's system last week, said Ryan Currens, the county's emergency management coordinator. He said the upgrades cost the county about $110,000, and it's up to the four police departments and local fire and ambulance services to fund their new compatible equipment.

“It just wouldn't be feasible for the county to buy radios for every fireman and fire truck in the county,” Currens said.

Fortunately, radios purchased since the late 1990s can be reprogrammed for the new narrowband standard.

“Probably 90 percent of the radios we've been using in the county have been compatible,” Currens said. “They've had time to build them into their budgets.”

The State Patrol has spent $2.5 million for new hand-held radios but will need additional funding for the repeaters mounted in patrol cars' trunks to link them with dispatchers, Henderson said. He said the patrol also hopes to seek quotes on those new transmitters needed to cover “dead zones” across the state.

“I'd hate to even guess” what that will cost, Henderson said.