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Officials debate fire radio upgrades and fire-rated lapel mics as part of equipment review
Summary
County radio tech and chiefs outlined operational trade-offs and costs of upgrading from XL200 radios to XL400 with fire-rated lapel microphones; staff estimated about $1,800 per radio to move to a fire-rated platform, and commissioners asked for a plan and current quotes.
Hood County officials spent a significant portion of their March 31 special meeting probing the technical and budget trade-offs of replacing aging radios and fitting fire-rated lapel microphones.
Travis Watkins, the county radio technician, told the court that fire-rated lapel mics include extra hardware to shed water and withstand heat and are substantially more expensive than the county’s existing lapel mics. "The cost of a 400 fire rated radio over an XL200 is roughly $1,800 per radio," Watkins said, summarizing the roughly $1.8k-per-unit premium the county would face if it replaced the older XL200 fleet with XL400s that fully support the higher-spec microphones and features.
Background and operational concern: several departments still carry Kinwood radios that have not been keyed onto the county system; staff and chiefs said Kinwood models do not perform as well on the existing county system as Harris radios. Jeff Young said the county is discussing larger radio-core changes and recommended that commissioners "consider radios down the road" as part of that bigger project, rather than funding an immediate county-wide replacement within this equipment package.
Chiefs and commissioners debated whether to upgrade all radios at once to preserve compatibility or to retrofit only certain vehicles. Chiefs urged a station-management approach (mount a radio at every seat, check them in and out) and suggested ordering radios and mics for every seat on fire apparatus to avoid mismatched equipment at emergency scenes. County staff noted that if the county elected to move to a fire-rated platform it would need to specify which seats and which trucks are prioritized and that replacements would add a material amount to the overall equipment total.
Next steps: the court directed staff and the chiefs to provide updated, dated quotes for radios and lapel mics and to propose a deployment plan (which vehicles and seats would be fitted) so commissioners can weigh radio costs against other equipment priorities.
