New radios cause for concern

I am a member of the (CERT) Community Emergency Response Team here in Ocean View, and a ham radio operator. Being part of CERT we work closely with other agencies such as the volunteer fire department, Red Cross, Hawaii County Civil Defense, and the National Weather Service.

I have concerns about the county switching over to the new narrow band VHF P25 phase 2 trunked radio system. They spent $31 million on this radio upgrade, and it doesn’t even cover the entire island. There are a number of “dead spots” in the Ka’u area, especially here in HOVE.

As far as I know the county is in the process of trying to set up another radio site at the HOVE Fire Station, but currently they don’t have sufficient coverage in this subdivision. This poses a public safety issue. This also means that the county will probably end up spending more money on radio sites, and upgrades to enhance radio coverage on the island. Not to mention until the upgrades happen, they are putting police, firefighters, and the public at risk if their radios don’t work on the new digital radio system because of dead spots.

The Honolulu Police Department had similar problems with dead spots back in 1998 when they switched to Pro-voice 800 megahertz digital radio system which initially they thought would only cost $20 million dollars, but after numerous upgrades and adding more towers they ended up spending $40 million.

After reading information posted on the Hawaii Volunteer Fire Captains Association website, volunteers complain that their new handheld radios’ battery does not last more than four to six hours. Sometimes volunteer firefighters are at a fire scene for longer than that. This may cause problems in a disaster when batteries cannot be charged at the scene of an event. The county needs to address these issues before we have serious problems.

Blake Stene is a resident of Ocean View