Communication has come a long way from the days of stopping at a phone booth to make a call.
McKean County has taken a leap forward, announcing all emergency services have been transitioned to the Pennsylvania State Radio Network, (PA-STARNet), the commonwealth’s state-of-the-art Project 25 (P25) radio network for public safety and emergency response communications. The network was built and is maintained by Motorola Solutions, which operates more than 1,100 standards-based public safety networks in North America.
“The project really started in June of 2021 when we had a consultant do a radio study,” explained Nathan Burgett, director of McKean County Department of Emergency Services. The consultants laid out the options available for Burgett and the county commissioners. The state network was chosen for a few reasons, the first of which was money.
“This was the fiscally responsible pathway for the taxpayers for us joining the state radio network,” he said.
With the old analog radios, the infrastructure was the county’s for upkeep and maintenance. Not so with the state’s network. “We (were freed up) from having infrastructure we had to take care of to use theirs,” Burgett said. “We have an agreement with the state. They take care of it.”
The transition happened in November, and it’s been relatively smooth sailing.
“Outside of learning curves, everything has been pretty smooth,” he said, adding this was his first project coming in as director.
The county provided mobiles, portables and vehicle repeaters for each police car, ambulance and fire apparatus in the county. An estimated $4.5 million in end-user equipment was used to upgrade them to the new public safety radio system. Other projects included in the overall project would include remodeling the 911 center communication room, which went from four positions to six with new dispatch furniture and three new paging locations: Kane Area, Port Allegany Area and Bradford Area.
A meet-and-greet was held in December in the final stages of the project, bringing together the commissioners and DES with McKean County GIS and IT, Pennsylvania State Police, state Rep. Martin Causer, Motorola, Capital Area Communications, MCM Consulting Group and various first responders throughout the county.
Bradford Township Fire Chief Dan Burkhouse said, “Thank you to the county and the team, as paging was a huge issue for them in Bradford Township. Since the update of adding a new paging location, it has been loud and clear.”
Sally Scrivo, who represents multiple agencies, stated, “The area of coverage for this system is phenomenal, as we can now take transports throughout the state and in areas of New York state and still be able to communicate with our 911 center.”
Burgett said all state police are on the system, along with all state agencies, Area Transportation Authority, McKean County, Warren County and more. He added that people with home analog police and fire scanners will only be able to hear dispatches for fire and EMS calls. A new digital scanner would have to be obtained for home use to continue to follow dispatches.
That was not a consideration when choosing a system to move forward, he added. The new digital system was selected for its ease of use, because range of use is no longer a consideration and because of its financial benefits. Overall, he’s thrilled with the new system and the work that’s gone into getting it in place successfully.
“This was an all-hands-on-deck effort from all team members every day throughout the 18-month process, and we were working on something to do with this radio project,” he said, adding he especially wanted to thank 911 dispatchers as they “had to make changes on the fly and the schedule throughout the building process.”
