After a broadcast station 100 miles away in Virginia caused interference and blockage to Lancaster County (PA) for nearly a year, a fix is finally on the way.
The digital trunked communications system is comprised of about 5,800 radios of first responders will be reprogrammed with new frequencies that won’t be susceptible to interference from the WFDC tower in Arlington or any another signal, said Michael Weaver, director of Lancaster County-Wide Communications.
The weather-influenced interference has interfered with Lancaster County’s dispatches ever since the transition last year to a $26.4-million digital trunked radio system for police, firefighters, medics and county workers.
“Typically, you wouldn’t be able to transmit or receive, depending on how bad the interference was that day,” said Michael Fitzgibbons, president of Susquehanna Valley EMS. “The more humid the weather, the worse the interference.”
The problem started halfway into the deployment of the new system when WFDC in 2014 boosted its effective radiated power to over a million watts, said Dennis Ward of Tusa Consulting Services, the project manager for the county’s new system.
Ward expects the reprogramming of radios to be completed by the end of March.
For more, click here.
Photo courtesy of Lancaster Online.
