O.C. Planted Own Seeds of Radio System Snafu

Trying to cut costs, Orange County purchased an emergency radio system with less coverage than originally planned, one that isn’t guaranteed to work in scores of large buildings, including office towers, apartment centers and malls, according to documents and interviews.

Some of the latest complaints aimed at the $80-million communications network cover failures inside buildings such as Irvine’s and Tustin’s own police headquarters and others that have forced firefighters to stand by windows to try to find an adequate signal.

When the county originally shopped for a system in the mid-1990s, officials intended to purchase one that promised coverage inside nearly all major buildings, according to county documents.

But the final contract, signed in the wake of Orange County’s 1994 bankruptcy, reduced both the total cost and the level of guaranteed signal coverage, said officials from the county and Motorola, which is building the network.

Motorola representatives said they are determined to ensure maximum possible coverage for the county. But they acknowledge that the new radio system was not designed to work in the area’s largest structures and might fail in some buildings unless costly additional equipment is purchased.

“This system might not work in heavy buildings,” said Phil Dobosz, the company’s director of program management. “When we design radio systems . . . there is a trade-off between the amount of equipment you can deploy and the cost of that equipment.”

The lack of guarantee has alarmed police using the new 800-megahertz radio system, which was heralded as a panacea for officers working with an overburdened 28-year-old network.

Irvine Police Sgt. Dave Mihalik said officers frequently enter large office complexes to take crime reports and investigate sightings of intruders. Without complete radio coverage, he said, officers will have to patrol such areas in pairs or make other allowances that will stretch police resources.

“It’s a serious safety problem,” said Mihalik, president of the Irvine Police Officers Assn. “Why would you buy a system that doesn’t work in every building, especially when you’re dealing with public safety? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Firefighters have also reported radio problems throughout the county, from South Coast Plaza to the Shops at Mission Viejo. Firefighters in high-rise buildings have sometimes been forced to find a window in an effort to pick up a signal, said Joe Kerr, president of the Orange County Professional Firefighters Assn.

“There’s nothing more disorienting than an office building filled with smoke, and that’s when you need a radio to work for you,” Kerr said.

Many firefighters were disappointed when they discovered that the system offered no greater coverage inside buildings than their previous radios, said Costa Mesa Fire Battalion Chief Jim Ellis.

As public safety agencies from coast to coast overhaul outdated radio systems, many of them report coverage problems similar to those in Orange County.

Police and fire departments from Delaware, Washington state and Pennsylvania have complained of significant signal failure inside large buildings that in some cases require expensive retrofitting.

Orange County’s new digital radio network was designed in the wake of the devastating 1993 Laguna Beach fires, when fire departments were unable to effectively communicate as they fought the blaze.

It was widely touted as enhancing communication between agencies and providing better coverage throughout the county, including the interiors of large buildings.

But police already complain that new radios sometimes fail to pick up calls from dispatchers, produce delayed and garbled messages, drain batteries of motorcycles and cannot penetrate the same large buildings that their old radios did.

Acting on the complaints, a county oversight committee recently ordered a halt to expansion of the system beyond Tustin and Irvine until the problems are solved. Meanwhile, Motorola technicians are scrambling to fine-tune what they call “glitches” in a new but, overall, functional system.

One of the most noticeable failures occurred inside Irvine’s and Tustin’s police headquarters. In each building, officers were unable to hear dispatchers who were sometimes only yards away.

Tests by Motorola and the county in several Irvine and Tustin high-rises found clear coverage in all areas except elevators and underground parking. Officials said they’ve also improved reception inside the Irvine police headquarters. Motorola has vowed to examine each problem reported to the company and try to fix it.

Motorola’s efforts are praised by fire officials, who said some early glitches, including coverage failures outside buildings, have been largely eliminated.

Coverage inside buildings is another matter.

Radios inside large buildings will more likely fail when signals must penetrate such materials as steel and concrete or when signals are reflected by tinted windows, according to technicians.

Constructing a radio system that will reach the darkest corners of steel or concrete buildings often requires additional equipment installed nearby, which can prove extremely expensive, according to Motorola and county officials. Even then, however, it is difficult to guarantee coverage inside every type of building, they said.

Nevertheless, the county’s final contract with Motorola asked the company to guarantee less coverage than the original level the company said it could provide, according to a county report evaluating the Motorola proposal.

The original proposal would have guaranteed that radios worked in buildings that absorbed up to 20 decibels of signal strength. The final contract put the threshold at 15 decibels.

Steve Staveley, then the La Habra police chief and involved in the county’s selection of Motorola’s proposal, recalled that county officials reduced the coverage level to cut costs in the belief that they would not lose significant coverage.

“There was a constant trade-off to ensure that all the customers were getting the pieces they needed at a price they could afford,” said Staveley, now director of the California attorney general’s Division of Law Enforcement.

Dobosz, Motorola’s director of program management, said technicians are confident they can fix the problems and provide satisfactory coverage.

“We don’t walk away from these obligations, regardless of what the fine print in the contract says,” Dobosz said. “Customers throughout the country are asking what’s going on in Orange County right now.”