By Ted Czech
The Hanover Evening Sun
The new 911 communications system, which carries the county’s police agencies, passed a 30-day test period Saturday, paving the way for fire and EMS to cut-over. It was the second test period for the system, which came within four days of passing its first 30-day test that started in mid-April and was to end in mid-May.
Steve Frackleton, a spokesman for Harris Corp. - the Melbourne, Fla.-based company that bought previous installer Tyco - called the completion a success.
“We’re not smoking the cigars at this point,” Frackleton said Saturday. “We recognize it’s a significant milestone, but we’re going to keep on working.”
Frackleton said company technicians were putting together a report to present to county officials this week.
Eric Bistline, executive director for the York County Department of Emergency Services, could not be reached for comment.
The completion of the testing period means the cut-over date for the county’s fire and EMS departments remains at mid-to-late July.
York City Police Commissioner Mark Whitman said he has seen a significant improvement in the system since his department cut-over in late 2008.
“We have minor glitches here and there, but I don’t think we have anything like what we had in the beginning,” he said.
Overall, Whitman praised the P-25 Trunk system, originally developed and installed at York County’s 911 Center by M/A-COM.
“I think a trunk system is a good system,” he said. “In my previous life (as police commissioner in Troy, N.Y.), I used a M/A-COM system.”
Lesson learned
On May 9, a circuit board housed inside one of the emergency services’ transmission sites - placed throughout the county - malfunctioned, Frackleton said.
“There was an intermittent loss of communication; it would be there and then drop off,” Frackleton had said.
Richard Shank, Manchester Township fire chief and a member of the York County Fire Radio Committee, said at the time the system failure was a little disappointing, “but if it’s going to fail . . . that’s the reason we have that 30-day period.”
The testing period was restarted May 15.
Frackleton said Saturday the malfunction was a “lesson learned.” He said an analysis was done, and now the company is looking at adding software that would alert them if a similar problem surfaces again.
Put to the test
Joe Stevens, chief of Union Fire Co. in Manchester, said he looks at the passing of the 30-day test with “cautious optimism.”
Stevens wondered if there would be an additional 30-day test period once fire and EMS are on board. Adding the two groups will account for roughly an additional two-thirds of all traffic on the system, he said.
“The true test will be a storm like we had in Codorus Township,” he said of Wednesday’s thunderstorms that brought heavy rains and flooding to southern York County. “Not only do we have all three agencies on, but they’re all busy...Those are the situations that’ll really put the system to the test.”
Still, Stevens said he was “glad we’re at a point where we’re moving forward...When it’s up and running without problems, then I’ll be satisfied.”
In the meantime, radios from his department - and others across the county - need to be reprogrammed by Harris technicians. He expected to receive them back shortly, after which his department would institute a re-training phase for the radios.
“There’s certainly a lot more work that has to be done yet,” he said.
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