News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Algood and Cookeville Police Departments received new radio equipment that will allow for clearer, more reliable communication.
Algood Police Department IT Director David Corley said the new portable and mobile radios have improved flexibility, sound quality, and coverage area. Corley said the upgrades were completely covered by the state’s Violent Crime Intervention Fund.
“It’ll allow us to communicate directly with officers from all five, all four of the other law enforcement agencies within Putnam County,” Corley said. “But also with outside agencies such as THP and other county agencies surrounding us.”
Corley said everyone benefits with improvements like these because officers will be safer and can do more to protect their communities. He said the new system will also allow officers to use wi-fi to transmit messages if there is an issue with their radio service.
“They shouldn’t see a great difference of change of what the officers do on a day-to-day basis,” Corley said. “But it will help the officers be able to better, I feel, offer service to the people of our communities.”
Corley said the change is so important because the radio system that local first responder agencies had been using for many years is reaching the end of its lifecycle.
“The P25 radio standard came about post-9-11 to allow better inter-interoperability between first responding agencies,” Corley said. “And anytime that there’s better communication between those agencies, especially in a time of great need, that communication is key to success.”
He said before the change other agencies would have to establish their own channel within the code plug of the outdated system.
“Sometimes that required the operators to take their radios, change zones to different channels to incorporate, and it, the P25 will allow us to be able more smoothly communicate, more clearly communicate,” Corley said.
