Police radios getting static /
Buildings block reception, while cell phones filch frequencies
JACK
LEONARD
Los Angeles Times
11/12/2000
Houston Chronicle
2
STAR
15
(Copyright 2000)
The police radio used to be the ultimate
piece of squad-car technology, as dependable to a cop in a jam as the trusty
black-and- white cruiser itself.
But that was before sprawling office towers
and parking structures started blocking radio waves. And it was before wireless
phones - with their crystal-clear reception - increased expectations for two-
way communication, while at the same time stealing frequencies from radio
users.
Now, it seems, in this era of technological
innovation, the crackling police radio is starting to show its age.
Police and fire agencies across the country
are using antiquated equipment developed in the 1950s and '60s that has failed
in major emergencies.
That problem is prompting departments to
spend hundreds of millions on cutting-edge radio networks, only to encounter
many new - and sometimes dangerous - breakdowns.
In one extreme case in Atlanta, a new
police radio network failed to pick up an officer's call for help just moments
before a rifle- wielding suspect wounded her and killed her partner.
In Delaware, firefighters resorted to
shouting out of windows because their $50 million communications system didn't
work inside high-rise buildings.
In Los Angeles, police use a 21-year-old
network so out of date that manufacturers have stopped making parts for it. For
years, cash- strapped technicians had to cannibalize parts from some hand-held
radios to fix others. The problems reached a crisis during the 1992 riots, when
officers in the field faced a critical shortage of portable radios.
Los Angeles is installing a new system.
Orange County, Calif., began rolling out an
$80 million network earlier this year and experienced its own static - including
several incidents that police insist put their safety at risk. This summer,
officers complained that new radios failed to pick up critical information from
dispatchers during a search for a murder suspect in an office building.
"I think we've gone backward instead of
forward," said Irvine, Calif., police officer Jeff van der Sluys Veer. Some of
his colleagues now rely on their own cellular phones and pagers, he said,
"anything they can to maintain communications."
The problem is part physics and part
finances.
The design of police radio systems makes it
difficult for signals to penetrate the heavy steel and concrete of office
buildings, parking garages, shopping malls and even hospitals. As these
structures sprout, they present major obstacles for officers trying to keep in
touch with each other.
Wireless phones also operate with radio
waves, but engineering experts say they often provide far better service than
police radios because phone companies place more radio towers in highly
developed areas. Local governments don't have the money to match that kind of
coverage - even with state-of-the-art systems.
The quality of radio service varies greatly
- even among agencies purchasing the same type of advanced systems. San Diego's
new network is similar to Orange County's, but officials there said they've
experienced few problems and are generally happy with it.
In dozens of other cities, however, police
and fire officials have faced signal failures in patrol areas and inside malls,
hospitals and even their own headquarters. In many cases, the breakdowns have
fueled cost overruns and triggered complaints that new radios are putting lives
at risk.
"Our society has become such a
technological monster that . . . public safety has just been overshadowed," said
Alan Burton, an Oregon-based consultant on emergency communications.
Police and fire departments were once
leaders in communications technology. In the 1920s, Detroit police unveiled the
country's first one-way car radio. The development was quickly followed by
two-way police radios. And soon, officers came to view their radios as an
indispensable part of their crime-fighting arsenal.
Until the early 1990s, most police radios
operated at frequencies that were 400 megahertz or less - the same frequencies
used by the burgeoning wireless communications industry. The explosion of cell
phones and other technology sparked a modern-day "land rush" for radio
frequencies.
Police and fire departments found
themselves without space to add radio channels even though their populations -
and emergency call volumes - were rising. As calls flooded dispatch centers,
officers had to wait in line to make a call - often delaying response times by
crucial minutes.
The answer was for police to switch to
higher, less crowded frequencies. But as many agencies made the conversion
during the past few years, the limitations with these frequencies have become
apparent.
The biggest complaint is that the radios
don't always work in many big structures and throughout entire patrol districts.
Experts point out that radio waves on higher frequencies cannot travel as far as
those on the low frequencies previously used. To compensate, public safety
agencies must add radio towers, which is often cost prohibitive.
Additionally, the technology is vulnerable
to interference from wireless phone transmissions. Technicians have
discovered that some cellular phone sites reduce nearby police radios to
little more than static.
"Dead spots" are reported elsewhere,
including Portland, Ore., where a new 800-megahertz radio network was
touted as state-of-the- art technology when it was installed in 1994.
In July, the Oregon OSHA fined the city
$3,600 after determining that the radio system was already overtaxed and that
failures sometimes prevent police officers from calling for help.
Yet building a radio system that will cover
every inch of a city at all times is virtually impossible, especially those with
large buildings or hilly areas, according to radio technicians.
"There are just places that radio waves
won't go," said Pat Sturmon, a spokeswoman for Motorola Inc., which manufactures
public safety radios.
In 1995, police officers and firefighters
in Kansas City, Mo., determined that their new $18 million radio network failed
in many areas of the city.
Frustrations soon erupted. Firefighters
said the new radios were so unreliable inside hospitals, malls and large
apartment complexes that some had stopped taking them along on calls.
One firefighter claimed his radio failed
while he was in a burning building, forcing him to leap through a first-floor
window to escape the flames.
In another case, two police officers said
their radios failed to work when they were each shot during a foot chase. One of
the wounded officers had to run in circles just to find a spot where the radio
would work so he could call for help, according to court records.
An independent review of Kansas City's
communications system blamed weak signal strength for the problems and
recommended adding antenna sites throughout the city. The cost to taxpayers to
fix the problems: $10 million.