Sheriff: MARCS radio system fully implemented, ready to communicate with other systems

Several weeks after the Lorain County Sheriff's Office began the transition over to the new Multi-Agency Radio Communications System, the office took the final step it needed on Thursday to allow all county first responders' radios to communicate with one another. Sheriff Jack Hall said on Thursday his agency entered into a memorandum of understanding with Cleveland Communications Inc. — CCI, the company that operates the L3Harris radio system still used by numerous emergency departments in the county. Under the MOU, CCI agreed to follow all the requirements of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information System security policy. He said that with this agreement in hand, the Sheriff's Office could finally make all police radios in the county interoperable. Interoperability is the ability of radios on different networks to communicate with one another in the field. It is crucial to connect public safety agencies across the county. Hall said that the technology needed for this had been in place for some time, but the MARCS and L3Harris systems could not actually be linked until CCI agreed to abide by FBI security policy and the MOU was signed. With the agreement now signed, Hall said his office will serve as the hub for interoperability in the county. It holds the encryption keys for both the MARCS and Harris systems and can therefore allow the systems to communicate with each other. "The final piece, which we should have probably tomorrow (today) or Monday at the latest, puts the security keys and everything else in their system on an encrypted drive for us," Hall said. "Basically every public safety radio in the county is going to have to come through the Sheriff's Office if they use MARCS, or if they use both systems. If they just use CCI, they only go through CCI, but anytime the two systems talk to each other, it has to go through us." The full transition to the new radio system was also hampered by another issue that has since been solved — one that was at once more technical and more personal. When the Sheriff's Office made the switch to MARCS in mid-June, its Kenwood radios were ready to go with completed encryption keys. Its Motorola radios, however, did not have completed encryption keys because the employee for B&C Communications who was working on the keys had left for vacation. This was ironic, Hall pointed out, because MARCS is a system powered by Motorola equipment. The employee has since returned and the encryption keys are now complete, meaning that all Sheriff's deputies will soon be fully on the MARCS system and the system will be interoperable with Harris and older systems. "I think we have finally arrived at the point of interoperability in the county," Hall said. "We just wanted to make sure the legal issues and the technical issues matched and that everybody was doing what they were required to do and fulfilling the security clearances and requirements of the FBI CJIS. … The deputies that have been using MARCS and champing at the bit for everybody to be switched over. No one can get over how clear it is and how well it is working." The clash between agencies that preferred CCI/L3Harris to Motorola/MARCS has dragged on for years, with MARCS winning out after county commissioners chose the $28 million system. Lorain County Metro Parks switched over to MARCS on Thursday, public information officer Mariah Dietz said in an email. The organization "has been evaluating and planning for a radio system upgrade for a few years to ensure our Ranger Department has reliable communications that best support its operational needs," she wrote. "After careful review, the department selected the MARCS radio system based on what was determined to be the best fit for our operations.""While it is still early in the implementation process, we are pleased with how the transition has gone and look forward to the enhanced communication capabilities the system provides for our staff," Dietz wrote. Grafton police switched over to MARCS at 1 p.m. Thursday, with Chief Dan Clark telling The Chronicle-Telegram in an email later that afternoon that "so far it works great." Reporter Connor Ball contributed to this story. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.