Aurora – Aurora officials are angry that a $12 million digital radio system installed in February 2004 for police officers and firefighters still has problems.
A high percentage of the city’s radio transmissions are garbled or have poor voice quality, according to Jay Jacobsmeyer, a consultant hired by the city.
Because of the continued glitches, all of the city’s 1,200 police radios this morning will be switched back to analog from digital. Aurora firefighters switched back a year ago.
“I’m way on the other side of furious about this,” Mayor Ed Tauer said at a City Council study session Monday. “That’s a lot of money to spend for a system that doesn’t work.”
Tauer suggested the city get aggressive to force the vendor, M/A-Com, to fix the problems. He also was upset that representatives from M/A-Com weren’t at the meeting. Officials from M/A-Com couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.
Aurora, like most big cities, switched to digital because “it’s where technology is going. It’s the new standard,” said Mike Bedwell, public safety system manager for the city’s Information Technology Department. Aurora inked the contract with M/A-Com in June 2002.
Aurora firefighters say the new system provided more coverage at longer distances but there was “echoing and feedback and missed transmissions,” said Lt. Hunter Hackbarth, president of the Aurora Fire Fighters Protective Association. Police describe similar problems.
“We continue to have garbled transmissions,” said Agent Don James, president of the Aurora Police Association. “It’s just a poor system, not working at all. The frustration is pretty high with the guys on the street. If we can’t communicate, it becomes a huge safety issue. There are times dispatch can’t hear us and we can’t hear them.”
This spring, M/A-Com ran Aurora’s system through 23,000 test calls, finding 99.4 percent of the calls were transmitted successfully. But the study didn’t look at the call quality, which was still a problem, according to police officers. Aurora then hired consultant Pericle Communications of Colorado Springs.
Pericle found a “serious and widespread problem” with poor digital voice quality that occurs in a “high percentage of calls.” The study, which was released Oct. 6, blamed “a design flaw or other weakness in M/A-Com’s implementation.” And that is what makes Tauer angry. “I can’t believe we are here 18 months later and we still have a problem,” he said.
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer may be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
