Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Radios topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County and volunteers discuss radio compatibility and short-term fixes for rural response
Summary
Attendees said some radios in county storage might be usable but encrypted units are limited; county staff and the interim fire chief discussed radio-to-radio federal channels and passing out existing radios as a stopgap.
Radio interoperability emerged as a key operational gap for rural incidents: attendees asked whether radios in emergency management storage could be repurposed and whether county staff could distribute radios during incidents.
Brady, the interim fire chief (S7), described a pragmatic option: "There are federal channels set aside that... they're just radio to radio," meaning some channels allow direct radio-to-radio communication without tower infrastructure. Officials noted many stored radios cannot be encrypted but could still provide useful short-term voice coordination. Attendees also discussed buying radios locally or using simple radio-to-radio channels for mutual-aid volunteers.
Speakers agreed the radio issue is solvable but requires inventory, programming, and possibly funding for additional units. The county said it will check emergency-management storage for compatible radios and explore giving out radios for incident response while longer-term solutions (additional equipment and radio programming) are considered.
