I always wanted to be a firefighter. I didn’t become one because I was born about 10 years too early. No one in my family ever had attended college, and my blue-collar parents believed that a college degree was the key that would open the door to a better life. They insisted that I be the first. Unfortunately, few — if any — colleges at the time offered fire service — oriented curricula. So, I became a journalist. But the dream still lingers within, like a faintly glowing ember.

Given that, it should come as no surprise that I jumped at the chance to participate in firefighter training at the University of Illinois a few weeks ago. Each year, Motorola brings product managers, marketers and design engineers to the training facility. The belief is that product design shouldn’t be conducted in an ivory tower; ergo, the opportunity to experience what firefighters experience, albeit in a controlled environment, will provide valuable insights that will help them to develop products that are more effective in the field.

That’s quite important, said lead instructor Mark Krizik — a Motorola systems engineer who doubles as a lieutenant with the fire department in the Chicago suburb of Posen, Ill. — as there’s just too much to deal with when on the fireground. Equipment must be donned, breathing gear must be working properly, instructions have to be understood and myriad hazards must be avoided — for instance, it’s generally not a good idea to fall through a floor, especially if it means landing in the basement where the blaze started — a common occurrence, I was told, as basements generally are where heat-generating devices such as furnaces and clothes dryers are located. Then there’s the weighty matter of knocking down the fire and rescuing victims.

“The radio is the last thing a firefighter wants to think about,” Krizik said.

After an initial orientation, we were divided into teams and issued gear, including helmets, air tank and mask, turnout coat and gloves — everything but the pants and boots. Then we were put through the paces, replicating over several hours the duties of an engine company, a ladder company and incident command. After one of our rotations, I overheard one of my teammates, a Motorola marketing manager, tell a colleague, “I had to take off my gloves in order to use the lapel mike.” She added that the experience was an eye-opener, as she discovered that using the lapel microphone while wearing heavy gloves was much tougher to do than she had thought.

The day was filled with other similar revelations. The Motorola people learned a great deal about the rigors of firefighting and how those rigors affect how firefighters use their products — what works and what doesn’t. And I learned a little something about Motorola.

All of us like to think we are selfless, as there is nobility in putting the interests of others ahead of one’s own. In large measure, selflessness is what makes us human.

When an act of selflessness is borne of higher purpose, it becomes conspicuous. Take Pat Tillman for instance. Tillman was a defensive back of some renown with the Arizona Cardinals, being paid millions of dollars to play a game he loved. His was a lifestyle that millions of men dream about—and he tossed it away to join the Army Rangers. When queried about his decision, he spoke of patriotism and duty, and said he was deeply moved by the events of Sept. 11, 2001. He didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the inherent danger of enlisting in the military at a time of war — danger that was all too real, as Tillman unfortunately was killed in combat.

Tillman’s sacrifice was extraordinary. However, there are others who have performed selfless acts that involved abandoning a comfortable lifestyle to do something more meaningful with their lives. I stumbled into one such person at the APCO Canada conference last month in Ottawa, Ontario. Her name is Lorrie Matthews, a supervisor with Calgary (Alberta) Public Safety Communications.

For 15 years, Matthews was the owner of a successful photo restoration business. Then, one day she woke up “wanting to do something more vital.” Her first instinct was to join the police force, but in the midst of training for that opportunity, Matthews broke her wrist playing soccer, which brought a premature end to that dream. Undeterred, she decided that working as a call-taker in a 911 center might fulfill her goal.

She told me of a call she took one night from a wireless phone. There was no sound coming from the other end, but she could tell that a connection existed. Because Canada’s 911 infrastructure is not as advanced as that found in the United States, the best they could do was identify the cell tower that handled the call. That scant information made the task of locating the caller akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Despite the fact she had yet to hear the caller’s voice, Matthews’ instincts told her not give up on the call. “Intuition is what serves me best on this job,” she said. Finally, the caller uttered “Chinaman’s Peak,” a mountain in the Canadian Rockies popular with climbers. Buoyed by this breakthrough, Matthews tried to extract more information, such as whether he had been ascending or descending the mountain, which would help locate the caller or identify his problem.

Then the line went dead.

Fortunately, the man was able to call back shortly after and, incredibly, was transferred to Matthews, one of several call-takers on duty that day. “That’s very rare,” she said. The man told Matthews that he had been descending and had suffered heat stroke. “He only said four or five words — but they were able to find him.”

The experience told Matthews she had made the right lifestyle choice. “This is why I pursued this job.”

Her boss, Curtis Brochu, manager of public safety communications for the city of Calgary, is glad she did. “She’s a shining example of what we need in professional communications officers,” he said.

My dentist always can tell when he hits a nerve — he has to put the drill down and pry me off the ceiling. A similar phenomenon happens in the world of journalism. When we write columns that hit a nerve, our e-mail boxes get inundated with reader responses. This is a good thing. Thoughtful responses from readers help to further educate us — and other readers — and help to keep us on our toes.

Readers offered many thoughtful responses to a column I wrote recently on the alleged problems digital radios are having in high-noise environments such as those found on the fireground. Evidence is mounting that digital radios are unable to distinguish between a firefighter‘s voice and background noise in some circumstances, leading to garbled transmissions that could put firefighters at greater risk. This obviously is reason for concern, but I had cautioned against the knee-jerk reaction of abandoning digital systems, that offer some performance advantages over analog, such as greater spectral efficiency and a stronger signal at the edge of the coverage area.

We shared many of these responses last week and today we share more. They have been edited for length.

“Performance advantages? Can you name any as they relate to the fire service? It‘s almost like you’re saying ‘other than intelligibility, digital radios work great.‘ Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? In most cases, fire went digital because they were dragged along with police that wanted digital encryption. Contrary to what you read in all of the ads, digital isn‘t better because it‘s digital. Digital is better when it offers the customer something they need. When they don‘t need it, there‘s nothing wrong with analog. The industry needs to stop selling the customers something they don‘t want or need. Fireground radios should go digital right after the hydrants go digital.”

“There is no place for digital on the fireground. None. Not now, not ever. There are NO advantages to digital. None. We have enough trouble with good radio training, good practice, experienced people, and excellent equipment with analog, but we have coping mechanisms to deal with it. Introducing digital will get people killed. It already has, or has contributed to deaths, if even incidentally. Please be aware that we are not Luddites, and we are not opposed to new technologies. But we are opposed to any new technology that introduces problems rather than solves them. We do not have a problem with fireground communications in the analog world. That is the point. We do not need a solution. To be driven to digital by the market is to put us in danger.”

“I participated with NIST in helping to review and provide input to the language included into this report that did identify that using any radio, not just digital, may require a different location or position to be used, in a high-noise environment. Our experience on this issue is that radio use and tactical positions cannot always be selected to optimize the best voice quality. There are many times, as in an enclosed room or near a saw, in which a “mayday” or other information has to be sent from the position the radio is available in. Training is always important in how to properly use a radio, but even with this knowledge, the best tactical positions are not always an option.”

“I’ve been listening to handheld and land mobile radios for 50 years and today‘s digital cell phones and digital (P25) radios sound like crap. To suggest some training will fix what is inherently poor audio quality due to the low sampling rate is just silly. When I first heard a P25 radio demonstrated and read the technical specifications, I expected the emergency services users to shoot it down because they were so hard to understand. That hasn‘t happened, and I still don’t understand why not. Perhaps, as is so often the case, it will take a major loss of life due to radios that can‘t be understood for a groundswell of

resistance to develop. I pray it‘s none of my guys and gals that prove the point.”

“I agree training in proper use is important, but training should not be asked to make up for real technical problems that have technical solutions. Humans have a tendency to speak louder and louder to get their point across or when they are excited and stressed. In a typical radio, it is possible, when full of adrenalin, to reach the compression ceiling where the signal is loud but heavily clipped and garbled. Unfortunately, many digital radios suffer from this problem more than their analog cousins.”

“I have been working in communications for over 30 years, and the shoving of digital radios down the user‘s throat is the last straw. All too often, the manufacturers do not listen to the users before they release a product. If the users have ideas, they might show up in later product. As far as more training to be better users — suffice it to say that the tool should be almost idiot-proof. When you are facing the devil, you don‘t want to have to think, ‘I have to hold the radio in just the right place to make myself heard.‘”

Again, thanks to everyone who weighed in. We appreciate the feedback and love the fact we have such a passionate and engaged readership.

Lately we‘ve been writing about the problems that firefighters are having on the fireground with digital radios, which in some cases have had difficulty distinguishing between a human voice and background noise. Indeed, recent tests conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration indicated that analog systems provided greater audio intelligibility than digital systems in four out of nine environments, including when SCBA masks and personal alert safety systems were in use.

But tests conducted by a radio technician in Florida suggest that the problem isn‘t the digital radios at all, but rather firefighters who haven‘t been trained adequately on how to use them in high-noise environments.

Terry Forehand, systems manager for Nassau County, said he put Motorola‘s XTS series and EFJohnson‘s 5100 ES series to the test in a variety of scenarios designed to replicate conditions on the fireground. Chainsaws were fired up, PASS alarms were triggered and a tunnel collapse was simulated. According to Forehand, the radios performed well. He said a few minor adjustments needed to be made to the Motorola handsets, which included turning off the automatic gain control.

But no adjustments needed to be made to the EFJ radios, which feature the enhanced half rate IMBE vocoder that has been specified for the second phase of the Project 25 standard. Currently, EFJ is the only digital radio vendor using this vocoder.

Forehand was impressed. Right now, the county exclusively uses Motorola radios, but “I would choose to buy the EFJohnson radios based on this testing — they work,” he said.

The real problem according to Forehand is the firefighters. “They need to do more training. We have to get them comfortable with being in noisy environments,” he said.

John Oblak, EFJohnson‘s vice president of standards and regulatory affairs, agreed and said an International Association of Fire Chiefs working group came to a similar conclusion, recommending “common sense” best practices that included talking directly into the microphone, knowing how to hold the microphone in relation to the voice port on the SCBA mask and — when possible — talking on the radio before triggering the PASS alarm.

“This will go a long way to mitigating the problem,” Oblak said.

This writing is not intended to suggest that the NTIA study is off base. Rather, it is intended to offer some additional food for thought. Apparently, some fire departments are considering abandoning their digital systems and going back to analog. Certainly others that have been considering an upgrade might now be putting those plans on hold, perhaps permanently. Given the clear performance advantages of digital technology, such knee-jerk reactions would be unfortunate.

Last week, we shipped off to the printer a new supplement called PSAP, which will be published with Urgent Communications‘ August edition. In it is an interview with Brian Fontes, the new CEO of the National Emergency Number Association. Fontes told senior writer Donny Jackson that creating a universal service fund could solve the funding woes that long have plagued the public safety answering point sector. It’s a great idea, and long overdue.

In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act — an update to the Communications Act of 1934, which created the FCC — which established the Universal Service Fund, to which all interstate telecommunications providers must contribute. The idea behind the fund was to create a subsidy mechanism to ensure that citizens who lived in rural, low-income or high-cost areas would have access to telecom services that were comparable to those enjoyed by urban dwellers — who benefit greatly from economies of scale — at comparable prices.

There is little question that affordable, advanced telecommunications services enrich lives. That said, a well-functioning 911 system saves them. Clearly, a dichotomy exists today between the 911 service enjoyed by residents of densely populated areas and that available to those in sparsely populated areas. Indeed, of the counties nationwide that still do not have Phase II wireless enhanced-911 service, the vast majority of them are rural.

And the money doesn‘t exist to upgrade them, either to Phase II or, better yet, to the next-generation technologies we‘ve been hearing about. Four years ago, Congress authorized $1.25 billion over a five-year period for Phase II upgrades, but only $43 million has been appropriated so far. NENA officials believe that recent legislation that allows funding from the ENHANCE 911 Act of 2004 to be used for purposes other than Phase II — something some on Capitol Hill believe will be better politically, given the advent of next-gen 911 and the fact that the most populous areas already have made the Phase II upgrade — will help the money to flow, and they‘re probably right.

But $1.25 billion isn‘t going to be enough to bring next-gen 911 services to every American, regardless of where they live. To get the job done, Congress is going to have to step up and make a bigger commitment to this. Yes, I know this is a tough economic climate, the federal budget is under extreme pressure, and taxpayers will be in no mood to hear about USF fees, even if they only amount to pennies per month.

But Congress always seems able to find taxpayer money for pet projects, regardless of the economic climate. It needs to make NG 911 a priority. And Fontes should make a USF model for the PSAP sector his priority. He‘s onto something.

Better still, let‘s create a public safety USF fund that also could be used to fund the proposed nationwide wireless broadband network in the 700 MHz band. We live in a world that grows more dangerous by the day. We, and the first responders who serve and protect us, need — and deserve — the very best emergency communications.

Four years ago, Congress authorized up to $1.25 billion over a five-year period to fund upgrades to public safety answering points across the country to bring them into compliance with the FCC‘s Phase 2 requirements. So far, only $43.5 million of that money — 3.5% — has been appropriated. But the legislation recently passed by the Senate, which is expected to easily pass through the House and be signed into law by President Bush, could be the tool that‘s been needed to open the spigot.

The bill would allow federal grant money to be used for purposes other than Phase 2 upgrades, something the ENHANCE 911 Act doesn‘t allow and which this new bill would change. Specifically, its language refers to “the migration to an IP-enabled emergency network,” an important distinction, said Patrick Halley, governmental affairs director for the National Emergency Number Association.

“The fact that the money can be used for broader purposes, we hope, will help us,” he said. “Maybe we can … get people to open up their minds and their coffers.”

Specifically, if NENA can successfully demonstrate that the future of emergency communications whether it‘s data sharing between first responders in the field or the delivery of voice, video and text to 911 call centers — will rely on IP-based emergency networks and that the funding made possible by the current bill can be used to enable all of that, there‘s a better chance that the money finally will flow, Halley said.

Halley believes the Department of Transportation‘s $11 million project to develop a prototype for an IP-based, next-generation enhanced 911 network architecture — work begun at Texas A&M University under a National Telecommunications & Information Administration grant — will provide the needed ammunition, because it will deliver real-world, proof-of-concept examples. “It will show that this isn‘t just an idea — it‘s real,” he said.

But first things first. Before the PSAP community can begin to think about how it might spend the money, NENA first must get Congress to reauthorize the ENHANCE 911 Act, which expires next year. While nothing in Washington is a slam-dunk, particularly when it comes to money, Halley feels good about the prospect of reauthorization, precisely because NENA now has a much better story to tell. “Bills have a finite life and they get reauthorized all the time,” he said. “A lot of people already are lined up to work on this.”

One of those is Brian Fontes, NENA‘s new CEO, who previously served as vice president for federal relations for both AT&T Services and Cingular Wireless. He also served as the senior vice president for policy and administration at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, as FCC chief of staff and as senior adviser to FCC Commissioner James Quello.

While Fontes‘ experience is more on the regulatory than legislative side of the equation, he is “an influential and intelligent person who will help with this process,” Halley said.

One thing Fontes isn‘t is a miracle worker, and Halley acknowledged that getting Congress to reauthorize the ENHANCE 911 Act at the previous $1.25 billion level “might be a little unrealistic,” given the current economic climate. But it won‘t matter if the money actually starts to flow, especially since it now can be used to fund exciting, forward-looking technology upgrades that will makes PSAPs —the nerve center of public-safety communications — exponentially more effective.

So the picture has brightened considerably for NENA and the PSAP community it serves. But the new bill creates a new hurdle, pointed out to me by MRT senior writer Donny Jackson this week, which bears watching. One of the reasons that Congress has failed to appropriate the money it promised four years ago is that the more populated states already have finished their Phase 2 upgrades. Which meant that they would be ineligible for any federal grants stemming from ENHANCE 911 Act appropriations.

It‘s very difficult to get members of Congress to appropriate money when none of it can flow to their states. The bill currently working its way through Congress fixes that by ensuring that there will be something for everybody, but creates another concern: Will the states that have the most votes also get most of the money when it finally does begin to flow? If that happens, it‘s not unreasonable to think that the country‘s most densely populated states will have NG E911 services before some of their much more rural brethren even have Phase 1 service. Consider that today much of the rural West still lacks Phase 1 service, which only identifies the cell tower that handled the wireless 911 call.

It‘s imperative that Congress gets the language of this bill right, so that those who eventually will write the grant guidance for the appropriations that will follow will do so in a way that ensures the funds are distributed equitably. Everyone in America should get the best 911 service possible — and it shouldn‘t matter whether they live in Manhattan, New York, or Manhattan, Kan.

In the April print edition of MRT, contributing writer Lynnette Luna reported on some of the problems fire departments across the country are having with digital radios. A common complaint concerned the inability of the digital vocoder to distinguish between a voice transmission and background noise typically found on the fireground, such as sprayed water, chain saws and personal alarms.

Apparently, this article caused quite a stir, primarily due to comments attributed to ICOM America Vice President Chris Lougee, who not only said that use of a full-rate vocoder would solve the problem, but that TIA is encouraging such use. I heard from a few people on this, including Charles Werner, chief of the Charlottesville (Va.) Fire Department and a member of MRT’s editorial advisory council, who said Lougee is off base, because a full-rate vocoder would be too spectrally inefficient.

“People have this expectation now that a full-rate vocoder is possible … and that we‘re going to check it out, which is not the case,” he said.

But when I talked to Lougee a couple of weeks ago, he stood by his comments, and told me that TIA‘s vocoder task force currently is studying whether enhanced full-rate and enhanced half-rate vocoders would improve the quality of the digital signal in a high-noise environment.

I spoke this week with Craig Jorgensen, APCO P25 Project Director, in an attempt to clear up the confusion. Jorgensen said it already has been decided that all new P25 Phase I radios (operating in 12.5-kHz channels using FDMA technology) will use the enhanced full-rate vocoder and that new Phase II radios (operating in 6.25-kHz channels using two-slot TDMA) will use the enhanced half-rate vocoder.

According to Jorgensen, most manufacturers of Phase I radios “will be able to achieve that objective by the end of 2008.” (Indeed, Lougee told me it is ICOM‘s intention to introduce an enhanced full-rate vocoder into its Phase I radios this year.)

Standards work on both enhanced vocoders already is “earnestly underway,” Jorgensen said. But no decisions will be made until after the International Association of Fire Chiefs finishes its fireground noise study, Jorgensen said. “We want to clearly identify the problems … so we‘re not dealing with folklore information or hearsay.”

Jorgensen cautioned that it might not be possible to completely eliminate the possibility of noise swamping the vocoder. “But we can make improvements, if we have some data … so we can attack it from a scientific approach.”

Mike Heavener, owner of MT Communications, a two-way radio dealer in the Washington, D.C., area, offered a possible solution. He suggested replacing the standard speaker microphone — which resides outside a firefighter‘s breathing mask, making it more prone to the effects of noise — with a throat microphone, which he said has been around since World War II.

But while a throat microphone might be effective in some situations, it too has its limitations, according to Jorgensen.

“When a firefighter‘s low-air alarm goes off, it‘s a mechanical reed, and when that reed begins to vibrate, it‘s also going to vibrate in the throat and bone, so it actually will enhance the problem.”

Jorgensen said that placing the microphone inside the mask is another possible solution. “But you‘d have to figure out how to do that without running wires. There‘s probably a new technology that‘s going to have to be inserted into the mask to make it work.”

The good news for firefighters is that Jorgensen and his colleagues are committed to finding a solution. Speaking of the IAFC report that is expected to be delivered this month, Jorgensen said, “Quite honestly, we don‘t expect that we‘re going to be happy with what we see, and we expect we‘re going to have to implement changes to ensure that firefighters, in particular, are protected.”

Much has been written and said about how the effort to reconfigure the 800-MHz band so that operations by Sprint Nextel no longer cause harmful interference to first responder communications is well behind schedule and likely won’t be completed by the June 26, 2008, deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. But not much has been written or said about what’s being done to get the derailment back on track.

A big step in the right direction is the implementation meetings that the Transition Administrator is holding with 800-MHz licensees across the country. TA Representative John Bush reported during last month’s IWCE-MRT Wireless Summit in Orlando, Fla., that 15 sessions had been held, involving 170 public safety licensees that collectively have 350,000 radios affected by the reconfiguration. “The meetings have been very useful for getting people on the same page,” he said.

Participants held similar views of the meetings, which bring together licensees, vendors and Sprint Nextel in attempt to help them to better understand the mechanics and timetables of the reconfiguration effort. MRT contributing writer Alan Tilles, an attorney with Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy and Ecker who represents numerous 800-MHz licensees, described the meetings as “the most boring meetings I’ve ever been in — but probably the most useful.” According to Tilles, each meeting has contained an “ah-hah moment,” when licensees realize the complexity of the reconfiguration and the importance of planning. For that reason alone, the implementation meetings have been “hugely useful,” Tilles said.

Chuck Jackson, a vice president for Motorola, agreed. Jackson said during the summit that concerns are growing that the vendor giant almost certainly will encounter a chokepoint it might not be able to overcome because of the avalanche of reconfiguration requests he’s expecting over the next 18 months, due to the FCC’s turning of the screws regarding completion deadlines. The commission said in September it still expects rebanding to be completed by June 26, 2008, and that waiver requests attributed to delays by vendors and Sprint Nextel would not be granted easily.

“We just don’t have the resources to do 350 customers at the same time,” Jackson said. For that reason, he called the implementation meetings “tremendously valuable” from a resource-allocation perspective.

They’ve also been valuable in terms of uncovering situations early in the process that could turn out to be unpleasant surprises at the later stages. Bill Jenkins, a vice president for Sprint Nextel, told of an encounter with an air ambulance company during one meeting. The company is not an 800 MHz licensee but operates on four systems in the state where it does business. “They could have been overlooked,” Jenkins said. “The meetings have been uncovering a lot of interoperability issues, which is very important as we move forward in the process.”

Several more meetings are scheduled for next year. More information can be obtained at www.800TA.org.