FACT SHEET
Chester County
Voice Radio Project
The Chester County Department of Emergency Services (DES) operates an emergency voice
radio system that supports over 5,000 law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services
(EMS) responders as they accomplish their mission of protecting the over 500,000 residents of
Chester County.
The current system, installed in the early 1990s, is based on analog technology that is becoming
obsolete and is inadequate to meet the requirements of emergency responders and citizen
expectations.
On February 14, 2013, the Board of Commissioners signed a $42.1 million contract with Harris
Corporation for design, installation, testing, operational implementation, two years of warranty,
and eight additional years of maintenance for an Association of Public Safety Communications
Officials (APCO) Project 25 Phase 2 compliant digital voice radio system. This system will
support the Board of Commissioners’ “Public Safety” strategic goal, will satisfy the emergency
responders’ requirements, and will meet the National Interoperability Communications Goal.
Determined and aggressive negotiations also supported the “Smart Financial Management”
strategic goal by achieving the dual benefits of additional system features and a contract price
reduction of over $10 million from the initially submitted proposal.
The required operational features defined in the contract were developed by a team of subject
matter experts from the emergency response organizations, municipal government, and DES
under the leadership of ACD Telecom, who is acting as the project manager/engineer. Important
operational features include:
 Guaranteed improved on-street and in-building coverage,
 High audio quality,
 Consistent system availability and reliability,
 Modern diagnostic and maintenance features,
 A dedicated emergency communications feature,
 Encryption for a selected subset of law enforcement radios,
 Pre-planned expandability and modernization, and
 Interoperability to meet operational requirement.
Project 25 Phase 2 is the most modern technology endorsed by the Federal Communications
Commission that provides a set of open standards interfaces that allows interoperability across
radio manufacturers and maximizes the efficient use of radio spectrum.
The Harris system will be a two cell simulcast design consisting of 25 sites. The East-Central
cell will consist of 11 sites with 12 talk-paths while the West cell will consist of 14 sites with 10
talk-paths. The design will satisfy projected growth requirements to beyond 2030, and preplanned system hardware and software upgrades will extend system useful life thus maximizing
the county return on investment. Included in the project are 1,221 mobile (vehicle-mounted)
radios, 2,750 portable (hand-held) radios, and 132 control stations for emergency responder
station applications.
The system will support two dispatch centers; the primary in DES at the Government Services
Center and the alternate at the Public Safety Training Campus (PSTC). Additional operational
security will be achieved by geographically separating the redundant Network Switching Centers
and by the application of modern Information Assurance/Cyber Security strategies.
The system lay-out depicted below will provide guaranteed portable coverage throughout 97% of
Chester County as measured by two separate tests: one in nine designated urban areas and one in
the remaining rural areas.
The system lay-out uses many of the current system sites and will employ new co-location
agreements with eight existing towers. To obtain the required 97% coverage and system access
from the alternate dispatch center three new towers will need to be constructed:
 A 150 foot lattice tower in Ludwigs Corner, West Vincent Township,
 A 100 foot monopole tower at the PSTC in South Coatesville, and
 A 180 foot lattice tower at White Clay Creek State Park in London Britain Township.
Also, the existing 170 foot lattice tower at Embreeville will need to be replaced with a similar
tower in the immediate area.
The system is expected to be operational during the first quarter of 2016 when it will enhance
emergency responder and citizen safety through improved coverage and modern functionality.
The most up-to-date information on the progress of the new voice radio system is available at
www.chesco.org/des.
18 March 2013