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County faces
serious public safety communications decisions
DARKE COUNTY – “In the next five years we have some very serious public
safety communications decisions to make,” Darke County Chief Deputy
Mark Whittaker said. Cost? Possibly up to a million dollars.
In 2010 Darke County’s CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) failed over Easter
weekend. Dispatchers had to do everything by hand; this led to the
purchase and installation of the current Spillman CAD system. The cost
of the system was $302,008. A state criminal justice grant provided
$125,000, with the remainder covered by the county.
Several weeks ago, one of the three ‘radio system’ servers went down,
requiring the backup server to be used. There were issues with the
other two servers acting up as well. When repairs were made Whittaker
was told “you guys are going to have to upgrade your consoles… you have
no other choice.” Most of the servers used in the Sheriff’s Office are
15 years old, which is at the limit of their technical lifespan.
Complicating the issue, Microsoft no longer supports the XP operating
system used in most of the county’s computers. Any decision regarding
this latest problem has to take into account local emergency agencies,
hundreds of hand-held radios throughout the county, and the ‘repeater’
towers bouncing signals to areas like Union City, North Star and New
Madison. All are connected to the Darke County emergency dispatch
system.
There are three separate ‘systems’ handling 911/emergency
communications. Each has its own computers/consoles, software
requirements and duties.
The first is the 911 Call Telephone system. Two software programs
handle incoming calls from landlines and cell phones. One provides
information about the phone number itself; the other ‘maps’ it to a
specific location. The second system is the Spillman CAD/Records
Management system that was upgraded in 2010. It confirms the
information, then tells the dispatcher what types of units, and how
many, to dispatch. It will also indicate which units are already out on
other calls. The third, the ‘radio system’, sends the information the
CAD has specified to the appropriate agencies throughout Darke County.
All three are necessary components to Darke County’s 911 emergency
services.
“We have three server consoles for radio dispatch,” Whittaker said.
“One is for fire/rescue, one is for the sheriff and one is a backup.
Each can handle all three, so we can go from one to another if needed.
Two are in use all the time… there’s too much traffic to only use one.”
He added, however, they were gambling the single backup will keep
everything moving in the case of a failure. “We’re getting to the point
where one can do down… than another… then…” He said this system was
“mission critical for all county 911 emergency service departments
except Greenville.” If the radio system consoles fail…
Read the rest of the article at Blue Bag Media
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