Progress is on track for Polk County public safety officials and others to switch on a new radio communication system and get greater coverage across the area than what’s currently in place.

County Commissioner Ray Carter reported that Polk County’s new P-25 mission critical public safety communications system being built by Motorola remains in the pre-staging phase, but another critical milestone in mid-November is coming up that will determine if the project remains on track for a mid-2021 switchover, or if it’ll need some additional time to get the equipment working right.

“I’m pleased with how everything is going,” he said.

Carter explained that the next phase in the project is known as staging, when all the different components that will be installed in the field starting in early 2021 come together in one facility to turn on and work together for the first time. That requires various officials to make a trip to Elgin, Illinois from November 12 through November 14 for this testing stage and to go through a walkthrough of the whole of the components.

He said the goal then is for everyone to sign off during the staging phase that everything is working correctly to move onto an installation phase that will start in January 2021, and span over at least four tower sites across the county. Those will be located in Rocky Hollow, Taylorsville, Rockmart and Cedartown as a start. A fifth tower site is still in consideration, and Carter said that if not completed by the time the system goes online it can be added without disrupting operations.

“We’re in the process of looking at another site besides the one we found,” he explained.

He also explained why the county can’t use existing towers to get the same result, renting time off of cell phone tower already standing in areas around the county instead of building new ones at greater expense. Carter said current towers don’t provide the same coverage area desired for the system, but that they are utilizing one being built by Georgia Power to help with the overall cost.

A change order approved by the County Commission unanimously is also meant to utilize another tower already in place as a way the county has reduced overall construction costs. Cedartown’s tower site will need additional structural improvements to handle new equipment loads and another $19,240 was added via SPLOST funding to the project price.

Polk County’s new radio system – being built and installed by Motorola after the contract was negotiated and approved by the county over the course of several months in 2019 – brings with it new handheld radios, towers, the equipment to run the system and links to Bartow and Cobb counties to connect with the Cobb County system as a regional backbone.

“It’s just going to be so much better than what we have,” Carter said.