Communications net approved for state emergencies

Jace Radke

Friday, April 2, 2004 | 9:50 a.m.

The state won't have a communication system in place for emergency teams from different agencies to talk to each other during natural disasters, terrorist attacks and other crises by 2007, according to a plan approved by the Nevada Homeland Security Commission Thursday.

The commission gave an OK to the plan that will link the state's four largest communications systems and attacking the situation on a regional basis.

"There is no one in charge of an overall radio system for the state and that's the problem," said commission Vice Chairman Jerry Keller, the former Clark County sheriff. "With the four major systems linked together we leverage the weight of all the public dollars spent on those systems and look to the larger entities to support the smaller agencies."

The backbone of the communication net will be formed by the systems of Metro Police, Washoe County, the Nevada Shared Radio System and the Southern Nevada Area Communication Council. The Nevada Shared Radio System includes the communications systems for the state Department of Transportation and the Nevada Highway Patrol, and the Southern Nevada Area Communication Council links the majority of the fire and police departments in Clark County.

"The idea is to build on the immense value of these legacy systems that are already in place, and give a sketch of what the parameters are going to look like for the state," said Metro Deputy Chief Dennis Cobb, who worked with the commission's communication subcommittee. "By linking these core four systems we don't have a single point of failure that we would have if we had one system statewide.

"If one of the four main systems goes down we don't automatically lose them all."

The cost of linking the four major systems, and then linking the smaller systems throughout the state, is not known, Cobb said. Linking Metro's system to the Nevada Shared Radio System would cost about $1 million, Cobb said.

Cobb and the subcommittee will begin looking at costs and plan to have some figures to the commission by October.

Even at this early planning stage the linked system already faces a hurdle. The Nevada Shared Radio System is still not operating in Southern Nevada, forcing highway patrol troopers to use 150-megahertz frequencies instead of the $17 million 800-megahertz system that is running in Northern Nevada.

The problem dates to the purchase of an $11 million communication system for the Highway Patrol in 1996. The Highway Patrol was operating on 150-megahertz frequencies for which it did not have authorization from the Federal Communication Commission.

The new 800-megahertz system has corrected these errors in Northern Nevada, but it is still not working in Southern Nevada, Department of Public Safety Director George Togliatti said.