DHS launches multifrequency-radio pilot program for first responders

The Homeland Security Department announced details on Wednesday about an upcoming pilot program to test radios that would allow emergency responders on different frequencies to communicate with one another during crises. The biggest challenge to widespread adoption, however, will be convincing the state and local first response community to invest in new equipment, said the director of the National First Responders Organization.

The DHS Science and Technology Directorate named the 14 lead organizations from state, local and federal government that will evaluate the multiband, handheld radios. The radios in current use can function only in a specific frequency, making it impossible for first responders in separate agencies and on different frequencies to talk to each other.

"A lot of [first response] agencies like the autonomy that comes with having their own frequency for communication, but that doesn't work when there's a multiagency response," involving fire department officials, law enforcement and medical professionals, said Paul Llobell, executive director of the National First Responders Organization and fire commissioner of Long Island, N.Y. He is also the Suffolk County coordinator for fire, rescue and emergency services on Long Island.

"Sometimes we go to a call with three or four or five different radios strapped to us, because we need to be able to communicate with other agencies in different frequencies. There needs to be some standard established," Llobell said.

The pilot initiative is the third phase of DHS' Multi-Band Radio project, after laboratory testing and short-term equipment demonstrations in 2008. The multiband radios are comparable in size and weight and have features similar to existing portable devices, but "would provide users with much improved incident communications capabilities," DHS said in a statement.

Though Llobell acknowledged that such communication improvements are necessary, he predicted the first response community would be slow to adopt the upgraded technology due to lack of funds and a reluctance to be trained on new equipment.

"Radio equipment is a major expense, especially for small agencies," Llobell said. On Long Island, fire departments don't have a line item in their operating budgets for radio equipment, primarily because the equipment they already have is operable.

"Beyond funding, a lot of this is about teaching the old dog new tricks," Llobell said. "If you tell a local fire department, that maybe has 50 members total, 'You need to buy these and get rebanded,' that means new equipment for dispatch, for chiefs, the fighters, and so on. There are a lot of opinions, and to make everyone get in concert will be difficult."

He compared potential challenges of adopting multiband radios to the problems that many first responders have had complying with the National Incident Management System. Rolled out in March 2004, that system provides a template for how various levels of government and nongovernmental organizations can respond systematically to national emergencies. While former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff said a common language should be used during multiagency incidents, individual departments still rely predominantly on their own 10-code system of verbal communication, "and everyone's 10-code system is different," Llobell said. "Those types of challenges present a problem."

Organizations participating in the DHS pilot will test and evaluate the radios for a minimum of 30 days, with users primarily in a command-and-control role, or involved in special operations with multiple agencies. Results will be documented, and all findings published in a report to be posted in early 2010 on the SAFECOM program Web site.