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Barry County completes three-site radio upgrade; officials warn encryption mandate will require costly radio replacements
Summary
County staff said a $6.21 million, multi-site radio upgrade is live and improved coverage, but statewide Land Mobile Radio encryption standards due by 2030 will require replacing aging portable radios and create a new capital need for fire, EMS and law enforcement agencies.
Barry County officials said the county has completed a multi-site upgrade of its public-safety radio system that county staff described as a major improvement in indoor and outdoor radio coverage, but warned a state-level encryption mandate will force replacement of aging portable radios by 2030.
The project "encompass[ed] not 1 tower, but 2 communications towers," county staff member Stephanie Lehman told the Barry County Board of Commissioners, saying the total project cost was $6,214,264 and that the work was funded in part by American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money and a $3,000,000 allocation in the 2023 state of Michigan budget. "Towers are live. They've been live since November," Lehman said.
The upgrade uses three sites — Nashville, Hastings and Middleville — that operate as a simulcast system to "flood the area with RF" and increase coverage, Lehman said. She described the Nashville tower as 475 feet tall and said the county owns the Hastings and Middleville sites and has equipment on a state-owned site in…
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