A Salem police car. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
Rubbernecks wanting to know about the latest police activity won’t be able to turn the dial of their radios to hear police chatter after Salem’s public safety agencies transitioned to a digital radio system this year.
The Salem Police Department scanner traffic is now on Broadcastify.com on a 15 minute delay after it got an $11.2 million upgrade from an antiquated, lower frequency system last month.
Police Chief Jerry Moore chose the delay, which allows citizens to continue listening in but keeps those up to no good from knowing cops’ strategy.
Salem police spokeswoman Lt. Debbie Aguilar said the department wanted to be transparent by continuing to broadcast scanner traffic.
“We understand there are people out there that want to listen. They’re curious and they want to hear what’s going on in our community,” Aguilar said.
The new radio system involved installing four new antennae towers around the city and purchasing 356 mobile radios and 434 portable ones.
In 1990, the Salem Fire Department and Salem’s Public Works Department moved to an 800-megahertz system while the police department remained at a lower frequency because of budgeting issues.
Mark Buchholz, director of Willamette Valley 9-1-1, said there were issues the entire time police were on that system because the frequencies couldn’t talk with one another. That prevented police from using radios to communicate with firefighters without patching into dispatch. There were also dead zones in the city where radios didn’t work.
“You could go into a Home Depot and walk toward the middle of the store and have no radio communications,” Buchholz said.
In 2014, Salem City Council approved a proposal to get a new radio system and the next couple years were spent siting new towers and purchasing equipment.
The city used existing funds to pay for the replacement. Buchholz said each user of the system, like Keizer police or Cherriots, pay a fee to help support maintenance and replacement costs for radios.
Over the last few years, the rates for those users has increased and the city used that money to help fund the system overhaul.
In January, the dispatch center added consoles that could handle the digital system. The following month, the Salem Fire Department transitioned to a digital frequency.
“The move to digital is almost a requirement in the industry,” Buchholz said. “Analog is becoming a thing of the past.”
He compared it to a 1993 Ford and a 2020 Ford – they’re both cars but there’s a difference in technology.
Buchholz said manufacturers weren’t making parts for the old system anymore and the dispatch center was hoarding parts they were worried they wouldn’t be able to find if they broke.
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