Wood County petitions the FCC

Quitman, Texas--  Wood County Sheriff's Department has petitioned the FCC for a waiver to the Commission's Rule 90.20 (c)(3).  Wood County has been working with APCO to obtain new frequency pairs, but has not been able to obtain a pair of frequencies in the VHF range inside the designated Public Saftey Range.

In a request to the FCC, Wood County cites that during recent floods last fall the main sheriff dispatch channel was packed with radio communications with all the various rescue operations & emergency situations.  During those floods, a lone unit in the field was unable to report that assistance was needed to save a citizen trapped in the floods.  Unfortunately, due in part to that the individual lost their life that day.

The county currently has One (1) radio frequency for the dispatch office that is used by 11 fire departments, 4 constables, 3 police departments, Sheriff's Department, Texas Parks & Wildlife Game Wardens, Texas DPS Troopers, and 2 EMS providers and TxDOT for communications to Wood Counties Central Dispatch Center.

Wood County applied for and received a Homeland Security grant money to upgrade and add to the existing radio system.  They replaced all in-car and handheld radios with this grant money with new VHF band radios.

APCO International has requested the use of IP/IW frequency 153.6125.

Link:  FCC License Modification

To read the waiver request click on wavers under the General Information section, then click waiver under the attachments section.

Digital radio communications comes to North East Texas

East Texas public safety agencies are starting to make the switch from old wideband analog VFH to the new narrowband which is mandated by the FCC by 2013.  A few agencies have taken advantages to homeland security grants for new digital radio communications.

So far Red River County Sheriff's Department, Atlanta Police Department, Greenville Police Department, ETMC EMS, Smith County agencies, and the City of Tyler,  and City of Longview have implemented P25 digital sytems.  Red River County Sheriff, Atlanta PD, and Greenville PD are using P25 VHF conventional channels for dispatch.   ETMC EMS, Smith County, and City of Tyler, & City of Longview are using a P25 Type I digital trunked radio system (TxWARN or Texas Wide Area Radio Network)

Several NE Texas agencies have modified their existing license for the new narrowband requirement, but many have also added the digital (P25) emissions to their existing license so expect more to come.