DHS to start trials of emergency radio

DHS wants to try a new approach: the department has announced preliminary tests of a radio designed to use all the frequencies where first responders hang out, which may prove easier than getting them all to use one network. Bill Ray writes that in an attempt to unify the radio systems used by U.S. emergency teams, DHS has announced trials of a software-defined radio handset from Thales which is designed to operate on all the frequencies used by the emergency services, while not costing much more than an normal radio.

The handsets will get at least 30 days of use by 14 different organizations stretching from the 2010 Olympic security committee to Murray State University and the Texas National Guard — representing the breadth of uses to which the DHS expects the new radio to be put.

The full list is in the DHS release, which states the tests will take place later this year. The department will be hoping the tests go well, having paid Thales $6.2 million to develop the radio (the radio, by the way, is called the Liberty).

The Liberty’s capabilities are impressive. The handset, which received FCC certification in February, operates in the popular emergency-service bands (136-174 MHz, 380-520 MHz, and 763-869 MHz) as well as being able to support different radio systems thanks to managing the protocol in updatable software.

Claims that the handset is the same size as existing radios are optimistic, and there may be usability issues with a device of such flexibility. Ray notes, though, that the real problems are more likely to be procedural rather than technical — just because police radio can interface with a firefighter’s radio does not mean the firefighter is interested in what the policeman has to say, or vice versa.