The chief of the Greene County Association of Volunteer Fire Departments, has told The Greeneville Sun that he feels the radio communications system used by county fire departments is in great need of being upgraded.

"Some three years ago, when I was elected to chief of the association, I was informed that our emergency communication system was, at best, a system that got the job done most of time, but had seen 'better days,'" Association Chief Bob May wrote to a Sun reporter on Tuesday.

"Over the same three-year period, I have received several telephone calls from the 911 dispatch center alerting me to the fact that our system was 'down', and that they were unable to dispatch emergency responders to a structure fire, woods/grass fire, or motor vehicle accident.

"While every second counted, we had to find alternative ways to contact the proper fire departments. This was accomplished when a firefighter, after receiving a telephone call from 911, drove to the nearest volunteer fire department that had the capabilities of 'paging out the call' within their own system, and alerted the appropriate county volunteer fire department."

How serious is the problem?

"We're fortunate that we have not lost any lives of Greene County citizens or the lives of county firefighters," May wrote. "I believe that we're on borrowed time.

"We have had calls that were never heard by the fire departments, and we have had calls where several departments have had to rely on cell phones in order to communicate with one another during an emergency. To make matters worse, the Greeneville-Greene County Rescue Squad uses our system for all their calls as well."

May also outlined the way the existing radio communications system works.

He noted that when Greene County 911 dispatchers receive an emergency call for assistance from citizens reporting emergencies, the dispatcher 'pages out' the fire department responsible for covering that geographical area in which the emergency is located.

"The page is sent via 911's radio system to the volunteer fire department's 'repeater' on Viking Mountain and the repeater forwards the alert to the individual pagers carried by all volunteer firefighters," May wrote.

"Once the firefighters receive the page, they acknowledge the page via radio and inform 911 that they are enroute to the fire station to respond to the call."

In principle, May wrote, everything should happen in that order.

"Unfortunately, things do not always work that way," he noted.

First, he said, Greene County is one of the largest counties in the state of Tennessee, covering an area of over 600 square miles.

"Greene County has a population of approximately 63,000 citizens, of which, approximately 14,000 reside within the city limits (of Greeneville), May said.

"Those 600 square miles are offered fire and safety protection by a total of 16 fire departments, (and) 15 of those departments are in the county," May wrote. "The 15 departments account for at least 72 emergency fire vehicles and close to 400 firefighters."

In 2007, May said, Greene County volunteer fire departments responded to nearly 1,500 calls, he said. "Add another 1,000 or more for the Rescue Squad, and you will see that it's a very busy system," May noted.

"We have tried many options to improve the current system, including:

* relocating the repeater,

* adding filters,

* tweaking this, tweaking that, etc., -- all to no avail," May wrote.

At a called meeting of fire chiefs a couple of months ago, May wrote, the chiefs, as a group, "decided that the time had arrived to rectify our problems by attacking it head-on."

The Greene County Association of Volunteer Fire Departments then contracted with a communications firm to do a communications "needs assessment" and to advise the association on how to correct its communications problems.

"They have spent many hours on our behalf," May wrote. We are still in the midst of working with this firm, but do have some answers that are pointing in the proper direction.

"We have discovered that one 'repeater' can not possibly cover 600 square miles," May said. "We also discovered that our current (repeater) location off Viking Mountain Road is in a very bad location, as we are in a straight RF (radio frequency) line with more powerful transmitters located on Rich Mountain near Boone, N.C. and that we are getting 'socked' by their transmissions. There are several others in Watauga County, N.C., as well that affect us."

On Thursday, Feb. 28, the association had another called meeting of fire chiefs in which the assembled chiefs were addressed by the communications firm doing the research for the association.

"We were told at that time, in addition to the previous bad news, that the ideal solution to our problems was to install a new, 'state of the art' system using three new Tait Simulcast QS base station/repeaters, on three yet to be determined sites, located geographically across Greene County," May wrote.

"The total cost for installation would be $176,780, including FCC licensing," he said.

For a fee of approximately $500, the manufacturer of the Tait repeater has agreed to complete a geographical survey of Greene County to determine the best location for the three repeaters, May noted.

"If funds were found to secure the new communications system, it would tie in perfectly with 911's purchase and installation of their new state-of-the-art base radios at 911 headquarters," May said.

May noted that an attempt, in concert with the Greeneville Fire Department, to obtain a federal grant to solve the communications problems had failed last year.

"As you may be aware, in concert with the Greeneville Fire Department, we had applied for a regional Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant to upgrade the communications systems for use by numerous city and county emergency response agencies," May wrote in an e-mail to a Sun reporter.

"The grant was for a total of $1.2 million, with a small portion being matching funds. We were extremely disappointed to find out that we were unsuccessful in our quest."

"How important is this?" he asked rhetorically. "It is important enough that all 15 volunteer fire departments voted to forego their annual $7,000 grants from the county commissioners in order to correct the problems and in doing so, perhaps save the life of a Greene County citizen and/or firefighter."

On the down side, May said, "this amounts to a little more than half of the monies needed to attain the system that we are seeking."

Voting in favor of seeking a new radio communications system "was a tough decision, since several departments are doing all they can in order to keep the doors open," May wrote.

"With each department having to pay for equipment, heat and electric bills, all fuel charges, (and who knows where the increases will end?), they are working on a shoestring," May wrote.

"Thank the Lord that the county commissioners have seen fit to pick up the costs involved with our annual insurance costs, which total nearly $91,000 for the ensuing year, as well as the annual grant that they (have) unselfishly given us."

May said he believes that "a large percentage" of the public "believe(s) that everything is running smoothly" with the counties' fire departments.

"All they need to know in order to feel safe is that when they call, we will be there for them in their time of need," May added.