By Ryan Ozimek
After four years of planning and development, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department unveiled its new $7 million communications system on Aug. 23. This fully digital system will replace the 20-year-old analog system being used today.
The Motorola Digital Communication system utilizes the ASTRO Spectra radios and ASTRO Saber portable radios to produce clearer sound transmission between deputies and headquarters.
"This is like a step from the 20th century to the 21st for us," said Sgt. Jim Arata.
Eliminating practically all background noise, the new communications network digitizes the user's voice and then sends it over radio waves to repeater sites, which pass the message on to its destination. This networking system should greatly improve the range of radio communication for sheriff's deputies, Arata said.
"A deputy in Gilroy will be able to speak clearly with another deputy in Palo Alto without having dispatchers relaying the message," he added.
These relays from deputy to base station to deputy cause a delay, which eventually leads to longer dispatch times, Arata said. The new system will cut this middle step, getting messages to other deputies swiftly, allowing them to get to the scene faster.
Not only will transmission be clearer, but deputies will be able to transmit via radio in locations where transmission is nearly impossible using the current radio system, such as the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Three cars currently have the system installed, and over the next year, the whole Sheriff's Department will run on the new system.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, September 4, 1996.
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