Wireless Connectivity

Calaveras Sheriff lands $1.2 million for upgrades

Two newly-received grants totaling about $1.2 million will fix the spotty communication problems Calaveras County Sheriff’s Department patrol deputies have in the Valley Springs area and mean that most patrol cars, by mid-2010, will have computers, department officials said.

"This is probably the largest single grant we’ve received for communication,” the department’s Capt. Clay Hawkins said of an $809,000 grant from the state Department of Homeland Security. The second, from the federal Community Oriented Policing Services — or COPS — program, is for about $305,000.


Among Hawkins’ responsibilities is overseeing department radio projects. If not for grants, patrol deputies in coming years would still have to rely on a low-frequency communications systems designed decades ago rather than the high-frequency equipment more and more foothills law enforcement agencies are graduating to, he said.

“As for our voice radio communications, we’re operating on old technology first engineered in the 1970s,” Hawkins said.

That system’s radio towers were placed in keeping with where most county residents then lived, he added, noting how the population is much more spread out now. That in turn has meant that patrol deputies in certain parts of the county grapple with “dead zones,” or areas where they cannot communicate with dispatchers or fellow officers.

The COPS grant will cover construction of a new radio tower in the Valley Springs-Jenny Lind area — one region where deputies have had radio troubles. The tower, to be up and working within 45 days, will conclude a four-year project that started with initial planning and engineering the department did in hopes of someday getting a state or federal grant to build it, Hawkins said.

“The agencies want you to do investment up front,” he said, “then submit for funds for construction.”

That most patrol cars will have computers and “data wireless capabilities” by June, 2010, is because of the homeland security grant, Hawkins said.

The computers, by way of upgraded microwave equipment on existing communication towers around the county, will allow deputies to themselves verify license plates, criminal records or other information about whoever they are dealing with, rather than having to have a dispatcher get and relay that information to them. The computer screens will also immediately alert patrol officers of new calls for assistance, allowing for quicker response times, he said.

Both Hawkins and department spokesman Sgt. Dave Seawell said the wireless computers will help in several ways.

“I think this will ease some of the burden on our dispatch center. Some of what dispatchers now do will be done in the field,” Seawell said, “and this will make the deputies more efficient, too.”

Hawkins said patrol cars with “data wireless capabilities,” will initially be used in the Valley Springs area, along Highway 12 and on Highway 49 as far south as Angels Camp because of where existing communication towers stand. If and when the department receives more grant money, new towers will be built so that the computers can receive and send information from anywhere in the county, he said.

The department’s communications upgrades planning includes an ultimate goal of microwave connections or links among all law enforcement agencies in the central Sierra foothills and at higher elevations.

This would allow any officer to quickly tap into information needed from another agency in the system, said Hawkins, “whether it’s a bad guy in Tuolumne County or a bad guy in Angels Camp. We would be able to share records data.”

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