93-3-3-WMR Audio on Demand presents the Preston and Steve show podcast.

And now, Preston and Steve's news updates with Kathy Romano.

Today is Thursday, October 3rd.

Good morning, Kathy.

Good morning.

In the news this morning, the latest issues with Delaware County's 911 radio system have the police union saying that officers' lives are being placed in danger.

They are calling for a new system that could cost the county millions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades.

Over the weekend, officials say there were four or five instances where emergency responders were unable to reach 911, the 911 call center using their portable radios.

Back in June of 2016,

Fulcroft officer Chris Dorman was under fire by a gunman. But while other officers could hear

him calling for help on the radio, he was unable to reach dispatchers at the 911 call center

causing confusion and chaos. Call center executive director Timothy Boyce says the problem was

a result of a major software issue causing their computers to reboot.

Those reboots happened at the worst time possible when the officer was in a gun draw, Boyce said.

Although Dorman was shot seven times, he survived and is back on the job.

Boyce says the software issues have been fixed, but he admits that they continue to have issues caused by the

calls atmospheric interference or ducting in the 500 T-band frequency. He compares it to having

poor cell phone service at certain times. They now use map forecasting when there could be

interference and alert first responders ahead of time. Boyce says the evidence is clear. They

need a new system, and he says that they have hired an

engineering firm to study the problem and proposed some changes for it. But he says that there are a

lot of challenges. Cost is one of them. The atmosphere can do some weird things, man. It's every now and

...