June 24, 2002

PRESS RELEASE
To: Newsroom
For Immediate Release
Contact: Brian A. Crawford, Public Information Officer
Phone: 673-6652, cell: 455-2609, page: 675-2137

Fire Station Alerting System Gets Much Needed Upgrade

With the recent activation of the new Fire Station Alerting System, the Shreveport Fire Department moved another step forward in its use of modern communications technology.

The process involved installing 800MHz radios at each of the city’s 21 fire stations, which now provides a direct link between the 911 dispatch center and each station. Previously, the Fire Station Alerting System had relied upon telephone lines and radio frequencies to transmit dispatch information to tone/voice "pagers" which were installed at each of the fire stations. Supporting this old system was a 1960’s era radio transmitter.

The new upgrade means that the fire station "alerting" function, which actually lets the firefighters know of an emergency, is now supported by the new 800 MHz radio system, and the need to incorporate the use of tone/voice pagers has been eliminated. The new system provides firefighters a more direct, faster and more reliable connection in delivering vital information such as the type of emergency, i.e., fire, medical call, hazardous material spill, etc., and the address of the incident. ###