At the Dec. 4 meeting of the Clarke County Board of Supervisors, Clarke Community Schools superintendent Kurt DeVore gave a presentation to the supervisors and members of the community about the need for an Iowa Statewide Interoperable Communications System, or ISICS, communication system not just for the school, but county-wide, too.
Others in attendance were representatives from the city of Osceola, Clarke County Hospital, Clarke Emergency Management, Osceola Police Department, Clarke Community School Board of Directors, Clarke County Engineer, and principals and vice-principals for Clarke elementary, middle and high schools.
DeVore stated the purpose of the meeting was to request support for an ISICS tower in Clarke County. He explained that when he was interviewing for the superintendent position, one of the things he kept hearing about was that as a district, there were communications issues, with radios not working and dead spots within the school buildings. The elementary building cannot communicate across town to the central office or high school, and the central office runs into issues communicating across the street to the main building.
“What I didn’t realize, it wasn’t isolated just to us, but almost everybody in Clarke County,” DeVore said, mentioning how pre-9/11, there was in interoperability amongst agencies.
History of
county comms
Clarke County Emergency Management Coordinator and Osceola Fire Chief Byron Jimmerson gave a short overview of the history of communications in Clarke County.
At one point, all of Clarke County was on an analog radio system. The radio tower by Walmart, which is about 300-feet, allowed radios to broadcast in and then tried to broadcast back out, but was not a repeated system. When the FCC went through narrowbanding, it cut all radio frequencies in half, which had extreme consequences in Clarke County.
“We went from being able to talk about anywhere we wanted to, to patrol cars not being able to talk in Woodburn, even from their car,” said Jimmerson.
About 12 to 13 years ago with radios now on digital, the county was sold on the idea of MOTOTRBO, which works by combining “high quality, two-way radio functionality with digital DMR radio technology to deliver increased capability and spectral efficiency, integrated data applications for added functionality and enhanced voice communications.” While Clarke County law enforcement agencies went to that system, fire and EMS did not, nor did the state as a whole. The system worked well, but was not designed as a public safety radio system.
Jimmerson echoed DeVore’s comments about 9/11 and the lack of interoperability.
“Everyone had their own sandbox, and no one played together,” Jimmerson said. Then, ISICS came along. “Unlike before…ISICS is a statewide sandbox.”
Iowa invested millions of dollars towards ISICS infrastructure, towers and maintenance around the state, to be able to offer 95% coverage from a car radio. A state tower was not required in every county, and Clarke County did not get one of the 92 installed; the closest state tower is in Van Wert, then one in Lucas County and one in Madison County. Several counties put up more towers on their own.
Jimmerson was initially skeptical that the system would work in Clarke County without a tower, but after extensive on the ground testing, he found the coverage was better than was coverage maps show; the radios in Clarke County are able to bounce off of the surrounding towers. He acknowledged the limitations and the need to begin planning for the county’s own tower.
In the meantime, law enforcement got APX NEXT smart radios, which work off the ISICS system and have a cellular backhaul. For others, like fire and EMS, they received APX 900 radios, which do not have cellular backhaul and only work off of the tower. They also have a larger limitation in that they do not work well in hardened buildings, such as the schools, courthouse, HyVee Gas station and buildings around the Osceola square.
The smart radios can work off of LTE on a supplemental versus operational basis; LTE is used in places where coverage by ISICS is not available. Another issue between the two radio types is that the agencies in Clarke County cannot talk to each other if they are not on the same radio channel associated with the channel of the tower the talk is bouncing off of.
Possible tower
It’s not just the school and emergency services that are affected by the lack of interoperability. The engineer, conservation, hospital, cities and Clarke Electric are also on the list of places that would benefit from being able to talk to one another.
“Even if I buy communications improvements, if we can get to the point where we can put up the towers…[it] improves public safety inclusive of our kids within building, and then cost savings so that we’re not duplicating efforts independently,” said DeVore.
Clarke Electric Cooperative has a 180-foot tower that they are going to decommission, and have offered it to the school for use. The tower could remain at Clarke Electric, or be moved to a new location. There would be costs associated with the tear down, moving, re-building, inspection, etc. costs to move the tower. A light would have to be put on top of the tower, as it is grandfathered in at its present location. If the school were to use Clarke Electric’s tower, it would save them about $400,000. To build a new tower, the costs have increased about $500,000 in just two years. Chad Gappa, Motorola representative, stated that the costs, like everything else, have and will continue to increase.
DeVore said the buying versus renting benefits of a tower, such as the rental of the Walmart tower, is similar to that of buying or renting a house. The interoperability in Clarke County would be the biggest benefit. Dispatch can turn off the chatter that is not necessary, and turn it back on in the event of an emergency or situation where the talk channels are needed to be open. A fiber optics cable could be run from the law enforcement center to the tower, and there are microwave benefits. There is also the cost savings to taxpayers by not renting a tower. A shelter already exists at Clarke Electric that would be available for use for equipment.
“When Dave Opie [Clarke Electric general manager] came up with the idea, we don’t want to use ours, you guys can use them, what a generous donation or a gift,” said Marty Duffus, Osceola police chief.
Microwaving
When asked by supervisor Dean Robins about the microwaving of information, Jimmerson explained that right now, not all ISICS traffic goes to the tower at Walmart, just the fire’s analog system. Outdoor warning systems are also on an analog two-tone system. If the sheriff’s office wants to set off the tornado siren, they don’t talk directly to the tower. They send information via microwave to the tower, which is then sent back out via microwave. Jimmerson said a big failure in the last several years is the microwave path, which is expensive to replace. When the system goes down, dispatch has to go to an 80-foot tower and hope that it works.
Analog traffic is also greatly affected by the weather, especially humidity. Some of the microwave equipment in Clarke County is so old that there are no longer parts left to fix it should it go down.
The tower at Walmart has been looked into for ISICS, however it only has limited room and a shelter that is not in good shape for storing electrical equipment. Jimmerson said that height does not equal better coverage.
Duffus spoke of how Clarke County is an anomaly with the heavy traffic it receives, which adds to the need for everyone to be able to talk to each other. He said Interstate 35 averages 16,000 vehicles a day, 10,000 a day go through the Highway 34/69 intersection, Amtrak gets 20,000 visitors a year, the casino half a million people annually, Hormel with 300 plus trucks a day and the new grain loop adding additional semi traffic.
“A lot of opportunity to be working with lots of other agencies…all of us need to be able to talk to everyone at the same time,” said Duffus.
Numbers
Robins questioned how all entities would work together to fund the project. He said the supervisors have already invested about $750,000 in the radio system, with the city of Osceola investing over $100,000. The supervisors have a seven-year maintenance plan of $150,000.
The cost of the project if the tower remained at Clarke Electric, to be outfitted with ISICS equipment, microwave, civil work and more is estimated at $1.6 million. The annual maintenance fee would be $60,000 starting in year two, and it would be a 12 to 18 month implementation to use the existing site. The price quote can only be held until Jan. 1, 2024, at which point the project will have to be re-quoted. Gappa said the cost to move the tower to a new location would likely end up being more than the project itself.
The school has about an $480,000 upgrade cost if they continue on their own; about $220,000 will have to be spent either way on upgrades including putting in a single-site repeater, which would only give them interoperability amongst themselves. If all entities worked together towards ISICS, then everyone could use the channels and have interoperability.
The price difference between the two types of radios is also significant - the smart radios have a price tag of about $10,000, and the others about $2,200.
Moving forward
“We have to do something. We don’t have comms in building, and I would prefer, because I always have to think about the taxpayer and their dollars, I would prefer to do it collaboratively with everybody, all the people that are gonna save our kids at the table. That’s my preference, to be able to do it collaboratively,” said DeVore.
A single, two-talk repeater is not available for the school to use.
Ways of financing such as internal finances or an essential services bond by county levy were discussed, but Robins said that the supervisors could not comfortably make a decision by the end of this year, needing to look more into the budget to see what numbers would look like.
“My hope is to create that interoperability. If we pick up that radio and we have something happening, we have direct comms with whoever I need direct comms with….my hope though is, we get to a point where we get an interoperability and we can talk. Everybody in Clarke County we can work together, showing taxpayers we want to work together and do right,” said DeVore.
More discussions about the ISICS system and county entity collaboration are expected to take place in the following weeks.