Avon Lake moves forward with its portion of firefighter radio system upgrades

AVON LAKE — The City of Avon Lake is moving forward with its part of a plan to upgrade the radio systems used by firefighters in five northeast Lorain County municipalities. City Council authorized a public safety communications and cell tower lease agreement Monday, the latest step toward realizing the "five-city radio" system envisioned to bring the fire departments in Avon Lake, Avon, North Ridgeville, Sheffield and Sheffield Lake a modern 700/800 MHz two-way radio system. The five fire departments automatically provide mutual aid to each other due to their locations and staffing levels, especially for structure fires and other serious situations. The digital UHF "ultra high frequency" L3Harris system could also be used by police and other city departments in the five communities. Avon Lake's agreements were approved by unanimous vote Monday. City Law Director Gary Ebert said during Monday's meeting each municipality involved in the plan must pass their own agreements in their respective Councils. Currently, all of the five departments use analog systems. Four of the communities use VHF equipment, with North Ridgeville being the lone exception. Avon Lake Fire Chief Jeremy Betsa said VHF equipment can be susceptible to interference. Sometimes his department picks up transmissions from Canada on their current VHF radios, he said. UHF signals do not travel quite as far as VHF signals but are better for use inside structures. Cleveland Communications Inc., a Parma-based business, will install hardware on three towers in the area of the five cities and each city will pay a fee for use. The computer "core" of the radio system, which will allow the repeaters to communicate, will be at Cleveland Communications' facility. This is different from the original plan for the departments to purchase the system hardware and have the core located in the Avon Lake Police Department's station. Repeaters will be located at the Lorain County 911 tower, the Mills Road and state Route 83 water tower and the Avon Lake Regional Water tower. "(Cleveland Communications is) going to maintain it and own it, and we're just going to pay them a monthly subscription fee per radio to be on the system," Betsa said. Departments will pay $10 per month per mobile and portable radio and $40 per month per control station radio using the system, in addition to add-on costs detailed in the contract. Departments involved in the plan will also have to have radios compatible with the system. Betsa said the price of a portable radio is about $3,200 and mobile radios can cost $4,500 each. Betsa said there will be no cost to the cities for the actual installation of the radio system, saving money that could instead be used to help pay for radio equipment. Possible grant funding and price breaks from L3Harris could further assist with equipment purchases. The plan has the support of Avon Lake Mayor Greg Zilka, who said other municipalities may be interested in similar systems in the future. "We really think that the format we're going toward is going to be something that is going to go and be used throughout Lorain County," he said. Betsa said the MARCS 700/800 MHz radio system was also evaluated, but that system would have relied on vehicle repeaters and the L3Harris system was ultimately chosen. Contact Dylan Reynolds at (440) 329-7123 or dreynolds@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @drey1357.