T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Belmont County 911 Director Bryan Minder says that the 604 new radios will be going to not only county first responders but all first responders within the county.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Belmont County Board of Commissioners approved a proposal and signed an agreement with Motorola Solutions on Wednesday for $4,351,615 for 604 radio replacements for Belmont County 911.

Belmont County 911 Director Bryan Minder said that the radios are being paid for with levy funds.

“We’re replacing all the portable radios that are being used by police, fire departments, EMS, probation, EMA, basically everyone in the county that’s a first responder,” Minder said. “The reason we’re replacing them, basically they’re no longer supported. We bought them 12 to 15 years ago and they’re no longer supported by Motorola. Motorola cannot fix them, the way they repair them is they’ll send them off to someone else to get it repaired using secondary parts from other radios.”

He added that he will not be replacing the radios that aren’t portable in first responders’ vehicles.

Minder said that the model of radio is the most up to date, state of the art radio that Motorola offers currently for public safety and first responders. The radios will run off of the current radio system in the county, but will also have the capability to use smart apps.

“They offered us three years worth of smart apps on all 604 radios at no cost to us whatsoever, including the backbone software and backbone equipment to run the software on our system,” Minder said.

He added that the radios can operate over voice control, and have smart programming, where the first responders will be able to program it not only over the air, but also cellular.

The new radios will have smart GPS location, which uses a better location accuracy.

“We have issues today with connection going out of range. Certain areas of our county just don’t have good radio coverage, whether it be down in Glencoe or Colerain, there are different places throughout the county that just don’t have good reception,” Minder said. “The smart connect allows these radios to connect to cellular which will in turn connect back to our radio system.”

He added that currently when a police officer is in pursuit and leaves Belmont County they lose connection to Belmont County 911’s radio system.

“Also, the jail does transports of prisoners all over the state of Ohio. Once they leave Belmont County, they don’t have radio signal to us anymore. They can’t talk back to us, so they’ll now be able to talk to us,” Minder said.

He added that the new radios also have the capability of setting up up to 20 different wifi hotspots where there is poor coverage.

“This will allow us to be able to set up a public safety wifi hotspot and all of the radios can then be programmed when they go inside a building with poor coverage,” he said. This is a huge safety issue that we’ve had for years that we’re hoping to be able to rectify now with these radios.

Minder said that he believes the new radios will be able to last the county for well beyond the next 15 to 20 years.

Belmont County Commissioner J.P. Dutton asked Minder if he could clarify if the radios will only be going to county entities or if all first responders within Belmont County will receive them.

Minder said all first responders inside of county limits regardless of size will receive the new radios.

He added that the radios roughly cost $7,000 each and understands smaller villages wouldn’t be able to afford the radios, so the levy funds allows those villages to receive the same advancements while not having to worry about the cost.