Bracken County officials weigh short-term analog patch and longer fixes to restore cross-county radio links

Bracken County Fiscal Court spent the largest portion of its meeting hearing from regional first responders and radio vendors about persistent radio interoperability problems that have hampered mutual-aid response.

Chief Kyle Carpenter of Mazeville EMS and Fire told the court he came to explain the safety consequences of those gaps. “I just want my guys to be safe … it's life and death is really I hate to be that dramatic, but that's what it is,” Carpenter said, arguing that crews responding into Bracken County need reliable direct radio contact with local law enforcement, EMS and fire units.

Colton Levelville, who identified himself as a deputy with the Mason County sheriff’s office, gave field examples of two-way breakdowns that forced dispatch-to-dispatch phone calls when deputies were en route to a scene. Levelville said that inability to communicate directly can slow response and complicate tactical decisions.

The county attorney told the court she had checked with state emergency-management contacts and found no statutory violation: because the county paid for the radio upgrade from the general fund rather than with grant money, the change did not require an outside approval process, she said.

Technical vendors and engineering representatives briefed the court on two main options. One, a near-term “cross-patch” that reactivates legacy analog repeaters (already left in place during the county’s digital upgrade) would restore interoperability quickly and at relatively low cost, though with lower clarity and less portable coverage than the current digital system. Two, a longer-term approach would require removing a Motorola “RAS” (restricted access) key or otherwise reprogramming the digital infrastructure and hundreds of radios to achieve platform-level compatibility; that would be more expensive, take more planning, and cause a temporary system outage while reprogramming occurred.

Vendor representatives cautioned that not all radios are mutually compatible. Kinwood radios and Motorola IP Site Connect implementations use proprietary features; while vendors said some newer Kinwood models claim IP site-connect capability, the county was advised to get factory engineering confirmation before assuming the radios will interoperate seamlessly.

Magistrates discussed costs and implementation risks. A quoted short-term option (an analog patch at one tower site) was discussed as a stopgap; one figure roughly cited during discussion was about $12,000 for a tower patch, with additional expense expected for any full digital conversion. The court asked staff to obtain vendor engineering confirmations and updated quotes for both removing the RAS key option and for the analog cross-patch and to report back at a future meeting so members could compare best- and worst-case scenarios.

Court members emphasized coordination with neighboring counties. The court directed staff to confirm whether Kinwood radios ordered by neighboring departments can use Motorola IP Site Connect as claimed and to coordinate vendor-to-vendor testing with Mason County and other partners before any irreversible change is made.

The county did not adopt any immediate system-wide technical changes during the meeting; instead magistrates asked staff to gather clarified engineering information, full cost estimates and a recommended timeline and return the matter for a follow-up decision at a subsequent meeting.