December 13, 2015 - Agenda items receiving approval include:
Pay monthly expenses.
Repair of the Duplexer used to dispatch/ page the (VFD) Local Volunteer Fire Departments at a cost of $2,500.
Purchase contract for the old Municipal Judge’s building and lot from the City of Center on Nacogdoches Street at a bid of $30,000.
No to paying a reduced membership fee of $2,875.00 for FY2015 membership in the Alliance for Interstate 69 Texas.
Adjournment at 10am.
The Shelby County Commissioners approved, during their November 23, 2015 special meeting, the repair of an analog duplexer which is used in radio communication dispatching Shelby County Fire Departments for 9-1-1 calls.
"From what I understand, this is the duplexer that is at the Sheriff's Department where they dispatch the volunteer firemen and it is broken," said Allison Harbison, Shelby County Judge. "I asked (Chief Deputy) Shad [Sparks] if this one would be good to fix, or did we need to get a new one and he said the gentleman at DFW Communications said that this one, if we fixed it, would work."
There were questions on this subject; however, no representative of the Sheriff's Department was present to answer questions about the duplexer. Judge Harbison stated the cost of repair to the duplexer was quoted at $2,500 and she really wanted to know if the county wouldn't be better served by putting those funds toward a new duplexer.
There was discussion among the commissioners and Judge Harbison about coming up with grant funding or through some other means to provide digital radios for the fire department. Although narrow band radios have been mandated by the federal government, digital narrow band radios which the county and City of Center implemented haven't proven to be 100% reliable in the Pineywoods of Shelby County with its hill and pine tree laden countryside.
Shelby County Today reported on the radio issues in 2014 when they became a major concern for volunteer fire departments as they went silent on January 7, 2014. At that time the dispatch was on what is called a mixed mode system. The Sheriff's Department radios had been upgraded to digital narrow band, while volunteer fire departments remained on analog. As the radio system was upgraded to digital, the analog radio boosters (voters) were taken down, affecting communications in the outlying areas making it so volunteer fire departments could not always receive 9-1-1 dispatch from the Sheriff's Department, but could still communicate with one another on their analog radios.
By request of Sheriff Willis Blackwell, the analog equipment was shutdown by DFW Communications with the reason being, when someone would attempt to communicate on the analog side of the mixed mode system, it would cut off someone on the digital side and leave officers with no means of communication during that time. Although this action helped law enforcement communications, shutting down the analog system left the fire departments without radio communication.
When a 9-1-1 call for a fire department would come in to the Sheriff's Department dispatch during that time, dispatchers would then call the department's fire chief on the telephone to let them know of the call. A meeting was held at the Shelby County Courthouse with all of the volunteer fire departments in the county, Sheriff Willis Blackwell; then County Judge Rick Campbell; Van Bush with DETCOG 9-1-1; John McDowell Security Director at DETCOG; Bryan Loudenslager and Archie Cooper with DFW Communications. It was decided the analog system would once again be turned on and the volunteer fire departments would receive dispatch on a shared frequency for dispatch, unless their department had a frequency of their own from which the Sheriff's Department could dispatch.
When DFW Communications replaced the digital antenna on Saturday, January 11, 2013 and moved the antenna to a higher position on the radio tower, it improved the digital signal. Adding a digital narrow band voter to the Shelbyville water tower and another location in the county, facilitated improved communication countywide for all involved.
Communication was returned to the fire departments, and the departments all sought the use of 9-1-1 cellular phone dispatch service, giving the Sheriff's Department the ability to simultaneously dispatch the firemen by radio and cellular phone. For almost two years now the fire departments have struggled with a system which is unreliable. Departments have reported to Shelby County Today that at times they will receive a dispatch by cellular phone, but not by radio and at other times the reverse. Firemen are at times not always able to reach dispatchers on the radio when they are out on a call.
"I just wanted to bring it to the forefront and see, I could have just put it on to be paid, but I want everybody to know where we are on this and I do realize that communication to the volunteer fire departments is not good at this point. We need to figure that out and I guess we need to start with the Sheriff's Department figuring out what kind of communications we need for the volunteer fire departments," said Judge Harbison.
A motion was carried by the commissioners to approve the repair of the current duplexer for $2,500 out of the contingency fund.
