Emergency centre upgrade

A series 4000 communication control system with 4048 common control equipment, a four-position integrator RD workstation, three positions of series 3300 call-taking systems and VoIP telephones are being used to upgrade an American installation.

Humphreys County 911 centre in Waverly, Tennessee, wanted to prepare for upcoming, next-generation 911 standards and, at the same time, update its despatching system.

Zetron was chosen to supply the equipment to this western-middle Tennessee county, known for its civil war history and relics and the Loretta Lynn ranch, a quasi theme park and tourist attraction. The area is the consolidated public safety answering point for the county and the towns of McEwen, New Johnsonville and Waverly.

The centre has been operating since 2001, says Bobby Brown, local 911 director. The 4000 is a communication control system for medium-sized centres and offers easy programming and upgrades. It has trunked radio compatibility and an integrated instant-recall recorder that captures radio traffic on each channel. It can be scaled to accommodate from between eight and 48 channels.

The common control unit is responsible for switching and routing multiple audio channels between operating positions and external devices such as base stations, control stations, repeaters, telephones, monitor receivers and intercoms.

It can also provide 72 relay switched outputs, 48 opto isolated inputs and 192 non-isolated inputs for controlling and monitoring external devices.

The 4048 accommodates up to 16 operating positions, 48 channels and 24 cross-channel patches. At Humpherys the RD workstation has three units in the main centre and one in the basement for use during severe weather or as a backup.

“We answer calls for the country and provide despatch for the sheriff and ambulance and for the fire and police of the three towns,” says Brown.

However, the public safety answering point’s needs were beginning to exceed the system’s capabilities. Narrowband deadlines for radio and next-generation 911 standards were looming. And a despatch system that could connect to the regional PassPort trunking system was also required.

“Our Homeland Security district is going to PassPort trunking and this would make us interoperable with everyone in the district. Our PassPort system will give us additional capabilites and won’t limit us to narrowband conventional,” he says.

Local Zetron dealer Greer Communications won the project, based on the call-taking and despatch systems.

A major benefit of the 3300 VOiP call-taking system is its ability to support IP-based administration phones that include a fully integrated voicemail capability. This alleviated the need for the centre to buy a new admin phone system.

When it came to the actual upgrade, this went smoothly, says Jeff Perigo of Greer.

“We moved the old despatch system into the hall where the common equipment is installed. Then we put in the new racks, bolted them down and cabled up.

“As we got ready for the changeover, we moved the necessary wires or bridge clips. Throughout the process we never missed a call or had to forward any phones or radios.”

Training on the new systems went better than was expected, despite concerns that operators might find the move from button-based to PC-based consoles daunting.

“We were worried about the magnitude of change we were introducing,” Brown admits. “But the new equipment is so easy to use we spent just an hour with each shift and that was all they needed.”

Both systems came online in January this year.

As a footnote:

The most recent version of the series e4000 has been designed to comply with the analog fixed station interface, described in section 7 of TIA 102.BAHA. Zetron says that, once the test documents are published, this AFSI implementation will be found compliant.

If it is not, the company says it will update the software to be in compliance.