Lorain Fire temporarily shutters Station 7 due to radio issue

LORAIN — Lorain Fire Station 7 was closed for about two hours on Wednesday due to a problem with the station's radios. The west-side fire station was closed temporarily because it was not receiving radio communication from the county dispatch. The issue was resolved later that evening after an unused, automated dispatch system was removed, Fire Chief Chris Radman said. Radman said he moved firefighters and the pumper truck from Station 7 to Central Station on Broadway because they were not receiving dispatch calls at the station. "They can't hear anything, there's nothing going over," he said. "The portable radios are so bad they hear nothing but static on those and the station radio nothing's coming through. The move to Central added several minutes to response times, Radman said. He said they had had intermittent issues with dispatch at that station, but this was the first time they could not hear anything in the station. Lorain Fire has L3 Harris radios at its four stations, purchased for about $49,000 last summer from Cleveland Communications Inc. as another piece of the puzzle to replace the department's aging system. Radman said Cleveland Communications was out yesterday to check the equipment and found nothing wrong. "I don't like closing the station down," Radman said. Lorain, and several other cities, moved forward with purchasing the L3 Harris radios and associated hardware from Cleveland Communications Inc. after the county rescinded an $8 million contract with CCI earlier last year. The county has since chosen the MARCS radio system, with plans to upgrade its countywide dispatch, despite objections from numerous police and fire departments. Lorain County 911 Director Rob Berner said Lorain fire's issue at Station 7 must be on the city's end, as his center showed no problems in dispatching for that station. "We're sending it out and the signal is leaving our (center) without any issues. We looked into it," Berner said. "If it's going to all the other stations, the only reason it's not going to that station is because of their connectivity." He said the radio waves are based on where tower locations and repeaters are, so the age of the station does not affect its connectivity. He said gaps like this are why the county entered into the Multi-Agency Radio Network — or MARCS — contract. "If they're not going to sign up for that network and they go on the new network, there's nothing we can do to help them. If you sign up for a private network it's just that, it's a private network," Berner said. Lorain's other three stations — Central, the south side's Station 3 and the east side's Station 4 — have had no issues using L3 Harris radios with the county dispatch system. Radman said his department was using the L3 Harris radios on the county's existing, analog system. It is in the process of getting a contract with the county for an automated dispatch system similar to Elyria fire's, which marries the local fire department's Cleveland Communications technology with the county's dispatch, while still allowing communication between other departments in the county system. By early Wednesday evening, a contractor from Cleveland Communications had been out to Station 7 and disconnected an unused automated alert system, which seemed to solve the issue, Radman said. Lorain has previously looked at moving its dispatch in-house, with the 2024 budget including a line item for 10 additional dispatchers for the city's police department, Mayor Jack Bradley said. "We'd have to invest in upgrades to our present consoles, we have infrastructure in place that would have to be updated," Bradley said. He said the issue with moving dispatch back to the city is recruitment and training dispatchers. This story has been corrected to reflect Cleveland Communications Inc. completed work at Station 7. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.