It took four days for order to finally be restored to the devastated county.

Fast forward to 2002.

Another, even more devastating tornado passed through Johnson County. This time, however, things were different. The public-safety agencies in the area had recently taken the steps necessary to participate in Indiana’s Project Hoosier SAFE-T.

SAFE-T is Indiana’s statewide program to enable interoperable radio communications among all of its local, state, and federal public-safety agencies. SAFE-T operates on a Motorola 4.1 Astro Smartzone OmniLink 800-MHz trunked voice-and-data system. It supports analog and digital radios, and provides 95 percent mobile-radio coverage statewide through 126 communications sites that are connected by T1 lines and microwave.

Because Johnson County was participating in SAFE-T, when the second tornado hit, its public-safety agencies were able talk to each other over a single, trunked, voice-communications system.

Instead of taking four days for order to be restored, it took only seven hours.

Clark County Emergency Communications Center is the primary public safety answering point (PSAP) for the county. It is the central dispatch center for fire and EMS for all of Clark County and also provides 9-1-1 and dispatching for all of the county’s public safety agencies.

Clark County also knew about Indiana’s SAFE-T program and the benefits of participating in it. But in order for them to join the SAFE-T system, they would have to make some changes in their communications equipment. When the appropriate funding became available, they contacted a number of communications equipment vendors, including J & K Communications, to determine exactly what this would entail.

Indeed, where other vendors’ proposals for Clark County involved entirely removing and replacing their existing equipment, the plan J & K proposed involved extending their existing Zetron Series 4000 Communication Control System. This would allow the system to operate with and control the 800-MHz equipment required for the agency to participate in SAFE-T. In addition,
J & K’s proposal was considerably cheaper than the alternatives proposed by other vendors.

"With J & K’s proposal, we could stay with the proven product line we’ve used for over a decade and expand our setup to meet all of the project goals," says Brad Meixell, Clark County 9-1-1
Administrator. "Our dispatchers wouldn’t have to learn a completely new system. And we could accomplish all of this at one-third the cost of the other proposals. The decision was easy."

The 5300 Series is compatible with EF Johnson 531x/532x (VHF), 533x/536x (UHF), and 538x (800 MHz) mobile radios.

"We also deployed two of Zetron’s iRIMs [intelligent radio interface modules] to support wireless connections between the EF Johnson 5300 Series radio and Zetron’s Series 4000," says Roger Love, Systems Engineer at J & K Communications. "This would allow users to remotely select talk groups on the EF Johnson system."

"We completed the expansion and brought them back online within four hours," Love continues. "This was possible because we’d pre-tested all of the radio equipment and level settings. We also rechecked those settings both before and after the cutover. So we only had to make minor adjustments at that point."

When asked how well the new equipment is working for Clark County, Love responds: "They’re very satisfied with the outcome, It allowed them to get the expansion they needed at minimal expense. They have estimated that, compared to the other vendors’ proposals, this solution saved them several hundred thousand dollars. This is just one of many public-safety agencies in Indiana where J & K has leveraged existing Zetron equipment to bring an agency in compliance with the SAFE-T program."