Grand Jury Is Tuning In on Complaints About Radios

Orange County grand jurors are reviewing complaints by firefighters and police officers that a highly touted $80-million radio system for county emergency crews isn’t working properly.

At a meeting earlier this week at Irvine police headquarters, a half-dozen officers told grand jurors that many lack confidence in the 800 megahertz technology, said Sgt. Dave Mihalik, president of the Irvine Police Assn.

Police officers complain that the new radios sometimes fail to pick up calls from dispatchers, produce garbled messages, delay communications and don’t work well inside some major buildings.

County staff and technicians from Motorola, which is installing the system, have worked for months to fix the glitches, which some officers insist have occasionally put their lives at risk.

But while formal complaints have fallen dramatically since the summer, some police officers say their colleagues are so frustrated that they have simply stopped reporting the problems.

“I think it’s still as serious as it was in the beginning,” Mihalik said. “I’m glad that our concerns were heard.”

Costa Mesa City Manager Allan L. Roeder, who chairs a county committee overseeing the project, said he spoke about the communications project to members of a grand jury subcommittee last month.

Roeder said jurors asked him about officer complaints--particularly involving radio failures inside buildings--after reading newspaper reports about the problems.

The current radio system does not guarantee coverage inside many major structures, including shopping malls, hospitals and high-rise officer towers, according to Motorola officials.

Meanwhile, county officials have noted significant improvements in radio coverage ever since Motorola fixed faulty equipment that had been used to test some of the system’s transmitters.

“We have a pretty good sense that it was a major contributor to the problems we were having,” Roeder said.

So far, only officers in Irvine, Tustin and Anaheim are using the new radio network. County officials delayed construction of the system for more than five months this year following complaints byusers.

Police officers in Irvine said they continue to have difficulty sending and receiving calls while working in the Irvine Spectrum Entertainment Center.

A Motorola spokeswoman said company officials are unaware of the grand jury’s inquiry but believe their radio technology is sound. Early “glitches” sometimes arise while building sophisticated networks but are usually resolved quickly, said Motorola’s Pat Sturmon.

The system will vastly improve communication among police and fire agencies once installation is complete, she said.