City of Weymouth Fire
The town of Weymouth, Massachussetts, is located six miles south of Boston. The 22-mile area features critical infrastructure including highways, hospitals and an underground sewer system.
The Weymouth Fire Department is comprised of almost 100 paid, permanent, full-time uniformed members. With three engine trunks and two ladder trucks, Weymouth Fire responds to an average 7,000 incidents each year.
The Challenge
There are a lot of tunnel systems and other areas of the town that need to offer better coverage for radios to primarily increase crew safety.
Since the 1960s Weymouth Fire had operated on a simplex VHF system. In the 1980s a repeater was installed which gave officers the chance to communicate portable to portable.
The problem with the system over time was that telephone lines started to deteriorate and the voters and receivers started to lose connectivity. So there were areas of town where there was no portable coverage and communications could only be carried out in these areas via a high wattage mobile.
However, a fire in January 2008 increased the urgency of the system replacement. Miscommunications during the incident resulted in injuries to four firefighters.
The Solution
The wider metro fire district was able to obtain 76 UHF frequencies to enable all firefighters within the district to communicate with one another. Weymouth also received a federal grant to install a radio system.
Tait partner Radio Solutions was selected to completely replace the old system with a TaitNet P25 simulcast system. The simulcast system provides excellent coverage in all areas of the town, which Weymouth did not have with the old system.
Weymouth also equipped the trucks with Tait TM9100 P25 mobiles and fighters with rugged Tait TP9100 P25 portables. The radios are dual mode and can be used in analog or digital mode.
Weymouth now has better communications at multiple incidents. Radio users have alternative fire ground and mutual aid channels to operate on and can easily switch between channels on different frequencies.
Because the Tait system is based on the P25 standard, Weymouth is able to communicate with neighboring agencies, while having a future-proof system that can be moved to digital at any time.
The Outcome
Weymouth Fire Department Chief Robert Leary believes they have leaped a "huge hurdle towards firefighter safety" with their new Tait P25 system. "We needed to replace a failing system with one that was going to be reliable and would work in all areas of the town, and just to not lose communication and not sacrifice firefighter safety."
