Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
A comparison of radio coverage east of Sweet Home along Highway 20, by the Linn County Sheriff’s Office and Sweet Home Police Department, indicates that radio transmissions by both departments’ dispatch centers provide similar quality all the way to the junction of Highway 20 and Highway 22.
The test was conducted July 14 by Linn County communications supervisor Dick Slinger and Fire Chief Mike Beaver at the request of The New Era.
The fire department has asked to be let out of a contract with the city for dispatch service so it can enter a contract with Linn County for service. Among the top reasons cited was the limited capability of the city’s dispatch Fire Three channel east of Sweet Home along Highway 20.
The department’s inability to communicate consistently with dispatch east of Cascadia has raised concerns about public safety and personnel safety. Fire officials have cited incidents in which they have had to relay messages to SHPD’s dispatch center through LCSO’s while working east of Sweet Home.
The test compared service between LCSO’s and SHPD’s Fire Channel One at five-mile intervals from milepost 44 to the junction, which is at the eastern boundary of the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District. It tested each agency’s Fire Three channels on the return trip.
Fire One is used to dispatch firefighters and medics by both agencies. The agencies then switch to Fire Channel Three while handling the emergency.
Linn County’s channels One and Three are broadcast from a tower on Scott Mountain and have similar coverage along Highway 20 to the east. SHPD’s fire one is located on a tower on a hill off Turbyne Road. SHPD’s Fire Three is broadcast via an antenna at the Sweet Home Police Department and has a smaller coverage area.
SHPD’s Fire Three transmitter could easily be moved to the tower off Turbyne Road and match the coverage capability of Fire One, according to Police Chief Bob Burford, and he offered to do just that two years ago. Fire officials turned the offer down because they were planning to begin using county dispatch services.
On Fire One, both dispatch centers and the vehicle were able to communicate loud and clear at mileposts 44, 49, 54, 59 and 64. Starting at mileposts 70 (there was no milepost 69) and 74, both dispatch centers reported the vehicle was loud but scratchy and readable.
On the return trip, Fire Three was loud and clear the whole way for Linn County. SHPD did not hear a transmission from milepost 70. SHPD reported that the transmission from milepost 64 was loud and scratchy. At milepost 59, communications with SHPD were loud and less scratchy. At milepost 54, it was loud and clear, but at milepost 49, the test vehicle had no contact with SHPD.
At the Cascadia fire station, a portable radio had limited contact with LCSO on Fire One. The portable was unable to raise SHPD.
The capabilities of Sweet Home’s transmitters will soon improve, Burford said. Using Homeland Security grant money, the dispatch center will install a 100-foot pole off Turbyne Road or possibly on Strawberry Heights. Sweet Home also has leased space for a Fire Channel Four transmitter on High Deck in Cascadia to provide services along Highway 20 to the east, but the fire department has not set its radios up to handle Fire Four.
The Sweet Home City Council and the SHFAD Board of Directors struck a deal to allow the fire department to begin using county dispatch services on Oct. 1. Oct. 1 is a Saturday, so the switch would probably take place on Oct. 3.
Slinger, who oversees communication technology for the county dispatch facility, said it’s understandable why communication is slightly better with county dispatch than SHPD.
“Altitude certainly affects it (transmission capabilities),” Slinger said. The Scott Mountain site is higher than Sweet Home’s. “But terrain affects it. Weather affects it.”
The weather on July 14 was sunny.
East of Cascadia, the terrain includes many little mountains and ridges, Slinger said. Sometimes, they get in the way of radio signals, but the UHF radio frequencies used by emergency workers is among the best for not requiring line of sight to a transmission tower.
“There is going to be dead spots,” Slinger said, and those will be different between the two radio towers based on their locations and altitudes.
The Sheriff’s Office has a repeater in the mountains at Cougar Rock, Slinger said. That tower does not transmit any fire channels. Fire channels could be added to the tower if needed in the future. That tower has been known to go down during the winter, and repair crews have been unable to go in and fix it because of snow. Most years, it functions through the winter, and crews may be able to get in and take care of it in the future if it goes down.
Based on where the antennaes used by the Sweet Home Police Department and the Linn County dispach center are located, Slinger said he believes that the county’s range is better than the city’s.
“I think the footprint of our radio is probably larger,” he said.
Slinger said the county has no plans to add extra dispatchers to deal with an increase of approximately 2,150 calls.
“We typically have three to four people on duty at a time. Some of these are working fire, and some are working law enforcement,” he said. “The operator has more time to spend on the incident instead of dividing (attention between multiple calls). ”
A new half-time dispatcher would be nice, Slinger said, but that position would not be hired directly as a result of the addition of SHFAD.
“In January of last year, we did do the dispatching for them,” Slinger said. “Procedurally, because all the fire departments work as one, there’s not that many differences in procedures, so it’s not that big an adjustment.”
One problem that has been cited as a reason why the fire department should move to county dispatch is that fire officials have complained about dispatchers talking over firefighters or each other.
If county and SHPD are dispatching a call at the same time, the other dispatch center waits for the channel to clear, said Cathy White of LCSO dispatch. It does not take long for operators to dispatch emergency workers to the scene, which is a short process.
Dispatchers talking over each other used to be more frequent when SHPD used fire one for all communications, White said.
If Sweet Home is using Fire Three, Linn County has other channels it can use for other departments, Slinger said. The only time the dispatch centers have any problem is when they try to talk at the same time.
Slinger does not believe the Sweet Home Fire D
epartment will be able to access any additional equipment using 911 funds. Oregon statutes spell out how that money can be spent.
“Anything that gets a responder to the scene is allowable,” Slinger said. The 911 tax funds will buy transmission capability but not a base station. It is typically spent inside the dispatch center.
Those funds recently bought 911 pagers with alphabet (alpha) capabilities for its responders, Slinger said. The same pagers could have been purchased for an alpha system for SHPD and the fire department.
The fire departments that LCSO serves have worked hard to keep services at a level that satisfies them, Slinger said.
“We’re going to provide that service to Sweet Home,” he promised.