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Glitch briefly causes malfunction of emergency dispatch system

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By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer Updated 11:22 PM Wednesday, November 4, 2009

The troubles that hit the Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center about 10 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, were resolved in less than an hour.

Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Mike Nolan said two breakers failed at the main tower site on Route 4 near South Gettysburg Avenue.

“We jumped on it right away and had people out in about 20 minutes,” he said, explaining, “There’s an alarm that alerts to the problem. The systems shuts down, then picks up with the backup system and that worked fined.”

PNR Communications maintains the seven-tower system. Technicians identified and fixed the problem, Nolan said.

The system handles 21 communities including Vandalia, Englewood, Miamisburg, Trotwood and Huber Heights police traffic.

“The primary tower sends out the signal and that went down. If one of the outlying towers stops, the computer searches to find another available tower and then we send it back out,” Nolan said. “It’s a fail-safe system. The computer’s going to decide the best way to get this transmission out.”

In July, Sheriff Phil Plummer said there would be a delay in the center taking over dispatch services for Dayton police and fire until after the first of the year because of technological work needed to get Dayton’s radios and computers to interface with county equipment. That work included installing a new antenna.

Dayton’s emergency dispatch staff, receiving about 200,000 calls a year, is a combination of sworn police officers, firefighters and civilians.

Plummer said part of the delay was the equipment failure that occurred on the center’s first day of operations in March. A problem with a phone switching device installed by AT&T caused some emergency calls to the center to ring rather than being routed to dispatchers.

The glitch meant that several calls involving a Harrison Twp. house fire went unanswered.

“I wasn’t going to go forward with adding Dayton until we were sure all the problems with that switch had been corrected,” Plummer said in July.

The center was developed to save money and improve services by combining several dispatch centers in the county into one central operation.

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@world v. MCSO, you must be Phil or Mike. The IT expert came from Parks where he "administered" less than 100 computers and a little system. He was phil's buddy in dispatch when both were assigned there. He is no expert, ask anyone at county IT if u dont believe me. The other capt is a relative of a sgt who is a relative of a property appraiser. All big donors to the campaign coffers, you get the picture. Back to the center, Dayton is doing everything possible to avoid Plummer management.

Mike
8:11 PM, 11/5/2009

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I keep hearing about two captains being hired. I only know of one, and he is the only guy who knows this system in this area. The other was an IT expert, and he is darn good at what he does. Gee, was it the inapt ability of the Sheriff, the Chief, the "Two" Captains, or was it a simple equipment failure. Thats okay, keep blaming the Sheriff. Yeah, that sounds good. He went out and unplugged the thing, yeah, thats it!

world v. MCSO
2:41 PM, 11/5/2009

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Plummer and Nolan have this dispatch center screwed up it should be disbanded and all disptatching turner over to the city of Dayton. They run out the crew who put it together when it was working fine and bring in two captains from the Park District who had not experience with this level of sophistication or radio system knowledge. And we wonder why these things go wrong. If you want a story go ask the former county radio system administrator his opinion on the real time debacle.

MCSO
1:02 PM, 11/5/2009

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Most of you are amazing, if you think that you can do it better, then do something besides sit behind you computer and complain. If you think that you can run the SO, then run for the position. If you think that you are better than the current IT staff then provide your services and do a better job. Glitches do happen and there are backup systems in place to take care of those issues.

Nikki
11:19 AM, 11/5/2009

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Welcome to the 21st Century and the age of technology. It doesn't matter who's running it or what Sheriff is in office. You are going to have glitches with - computers, switches, etc. Get over it! Anybody own a PC, work outside of the home, know an IT or MIS administrator? The days or the call box are long gone. If you are that worried about your safety stay healthy and buy a firearm for protection. The government is not here to hold you hand or even protect to you.

Ben Over
10:55 AM, 11/5/2009

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