Atmospheric interference known as “ducting” created four or five instances Saturday where emergency responders could not reach Delaware County’s 911 center on portable radios, writes Alex Rose for the Daily Times.

There’s no fix except to buy a new system, according to Chris Eiserman, second vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Delaware County Lodge 27.

“We have been in contact with the radio room, the Emergency Services Director and our elected officials,” Eiserman tweeted out to the FOP members. “We’ve made our voice heard … we want a new system and we want it now.”

New equipment would fix the problem by moving the frequency to a higher bandwidth, as required by the FCC in an unfunded mandate, but the cost would be about $40 million.

The 911 center works around the problem now by monitoring potential interference and alerting emergency responders ahead of time to use mobile radios in their cars, instead of portable radios.

A study is nearly complete on the strengths and needs of the county’s 911 system, and Delco Emergency Services Director Tim Boyce hopes to make recommendations within a month to county council.

Read more about the 911 system issues here.

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