TX Chief Worried over Comms Transition

Sept. 27, 2018
West Odessa Volunteer Fire Department Chief Richard Pease is concerned safety may be compromised in the transition to a new radio system.

Sept. 26 -- The West Odessa Volunteer Fire Department resumed operations this week and Fire Chief Richard Pease is concerned that safety could be compromised in the transition to a new radio system.

The volunteer fire departments each currently have four radios that are compatible to speak with dispatch, which is ran through the city’s newly adopted radio system.

“The other radios still operate under the old system,” Pease said.

He said communication among the volunteers and other county entities continues on the older ARC 4000 system, but if they needed to speak with dispatch the radios that have not been reprogrammed would not have access.

Odessa Fire/Rescue Assistant Fire Chief Jason Cotton said “that is where the agreement between the city, county and other entities is going to come into play whether they get on our new system or they don’t get on our system.”

County Commissioners approved a proposal Monday to begin phase one on radio assessment and selection. Sciens Consulting will conduct a study to see what the county’s options are.

“It’s come to our knowledge in the last three weeks that when the cog starts the process of joining the northern portion of our region, the GATRR system, that we’re going to have some gaps probably in our radio coverage in the county and so that cog is going to require us to build at least one tower and possibly two,” said Precinct 3 Commissioner Dale Childers at the Monday meeting. Consideration will also be given to utilizing existing towers if applicable.

“I don’t think the city realized when they implemented their system that there would be a big shortfall out in the county and there is,” Childers said.

Cotton said upgrading the radio system has been in the works for years, and explained that county entities’ communication was not cut off.

“They can still speak on (the ARC 4000),” Cotton said. “They can still talk to each other on it and they still do, but we have gone to our new system. We did not cut off the old system, if we cut off the old system then nobody outside the city of Odessa could talk to each other, we didn’t do that.”

Pease said he thought having only four radios to communicate with dispatch was a risk.

“If these guys are out here on a fire and say a portable radio goes down, handheld radio battery dies out on it, and we lose contact with them, well, we lose communication,” Pease said. “Communication is key. You have to know where your people are at all times.”

Cotton confirmed that the mobile radios volunteers have are also not compatible at this time with the city’s radio system.

“I know that they are working on a solution for all of this, but in the meantime it’s a dangerous game,” Pease said. “As far as an operational standpoint, we’ve still got a long road ahead of us. This is just another hurdle and we will overcome it.”

Funding for the WOVFD was reinstated this week after the department was temporarily shut down pending the outcome of the investigation of the previous administration.

Pease said it placed a greater burden on Odessa Fire/Rescue, was a hindrance for the county and was not fair to the community to have a fire department be shut down.

He said the WOVFD went back into service Monday night.

Cotton said that issues arose Tuesday with a piece of older dispatch radio equipment that affected the voice processing module (vpm). He said the vpm connects phone calls received by the dispatcher, the radio transmissions and everything that is needed so that the dispatcher can hear information and voice out a transmission over the radio. After troubleshooting the issue, maintenance identified a reset and reboot for the vpm as a solution.

___ (c)2018 the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas) Visit the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas) at www.oaoa.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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