ASHLAND – The Ashland Fire Department will soon receive a much-needed radio upgrade, Ashland Fire Chief Rick Anderson told city council members Wednesday night.
The council approved an ordinance authorizing and directing the mayor to seek bids and purchase MARCS radios at a cost not to exceed $15,000.
But thanks to a FEMA grant, which the department applied for and recently was awarded, the city’s estimated $13,437 will go a lot further.
“We’re getting about $135,000 worth of radios for about $13,000,” Anderson said.
The grant totals $405,000 and will be spread throughout four departments.
Ashland’s portion of the grant, along will the city’s 10 percent match, will fund four mobile radios, 35 portable radios, 30 speaker mics, two bank chargers, four repeaters and fifteen spare batteries, Anderson said.
MARCS radios are the fire department’s main mode of communication. Fire personnel use them to communicate with each other, with dispatchers and with other agencies.
Anderson explained to the council how MARCS, the state of Ohio’s Multi-Agency Radio Communication System, works.
“Basically we buy the radios– handhelds or mobiles– and then pay a $10 service fee per month per radio,” Anderson said. “That’s all we’re responsible for. We don’t have any infrastructure or anything because it’s all owned by the state.”
Ashland’s fire department has been using the multi-agency redundant system for about 15 years or so and has not had such a complete upgrade of the equipment since the initial purchase.
“I’ve gotten three or four radios a year, or when we would update a piece of apparatus, we would put a radio in. But to go in and buy all new stock, we’ve never done that,” Anderson said. “Hopefully this will be a chance for us to get in at 10 percent of what the cost is.”
