The city Fire Department is the recipient of a $266,400 Department of Homeland Security grant.
The money will be used to buy radio communications equipment that will meet new Federal Communications Commission standards, said Fire Chief Bob Barnes.
The new standard, Project 25, dedicates the 700 MHz frequency range to public safety radio communication and enables interoperability between agencies. It also requires radio systems to be efficient within 12.5 kHz instead of the current 25 kHz, which permits more public safety channels to be accommodated within the dedicated spectrum, Barnes said.
The department?s current radios are older, so new equipment purchased with the grant money will be dual mode, or backward compatible to those radios, and will also be able to communicate with radios on the new system, Barnes said.
He said local compliance with the mandate is still in the planning stages.
?We try to get help whenever we can and get ahead of the game,? he said.
The federal grant, though the Department of Homeland Security?s Assistance to Firefighters Grant program, requires a local match of 10 percent of the total project cost, Barnes said. City Council members voted Tuesday night to provide the $29,600 local match.
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arobinson@bristolnews.com
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Twitter: @BHC_Allie
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