Macon, Bibb County Starting Radio Upgrade Process

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The City of Macon and Bibb County are working to make sure their lines of communication are open. 700 brand new, 800 mega-hertz radios just arrived in the city and within the year, the highly-anticipated new system will be up and running.

Just like the people who use them, sometimes the police and fire radio system needs backup.

“When it would lose part of it’s channeling in the middle of the night or something, the police would suffer, fire would suffer, and the IT radio team would have to go out in the middle of night, and repair it,” says Stephen Mostellar, Director of Information Technology.

Pretty soon that practice, and those radios will replaced. Stephen Mostellar, Director of Information Technology for the City of Macon, says the new public safety radio system will be controlled by two towers that send out information.

“If the heartbeat dies the other brain says ‘up’ i’m the only one, and it takes over therefore we’re never down,” says Mostellar.

The current system only has one tower. When something goes wrong, and some of those channels are down, Macon Police, and other agencies have to find different ways to share information.

“It would alleviate those issues of how we communicate back and forth,” says Major Brady Fields, MPD.

It’s not just the new back-up plan that’s got officers like Major Fields excited to talk about technology. $8 million dollars in SPLOST funds is supporting this new system that links fire, police, EMS, and sheriff on one line.

“With this system we’ll be able to just go and talk to them directly,” says Fields.

Eventually each public safety car will have a high-tech radio inside for tracking vehicles, and in car-reporting.

“Receiving the call, responding to the call or getting information our to our officers as well as the officers being able to assist those citizens,” says Fields.

The entire system is expected to be up and running by August. The radios will be replaced within the upcoming months as the first phase of the project. Mostellar says the old radios will be used for non-public safety agencies including public works.