About a year ago – the RDOS switched from a fire dispatch system run out of Penticton Fire Department to one in Kelowna – at a great saving of tax payers dollars.

That new system utilizes data transfer on an Internet link from Kelowna Fire Department dispatch centre to an antennae array on a small tower in Penticton – which feeds to Mt. Kobau and Apex Mtn – both of which have transmitters at those locations to beam signals to Oliver, Osoyoos, Keremeos and the remainder of the Similkameen area. Summerland and Penticton are dispatched from the Internet line.

According to a consultant hired by the Regional District improvements to that system could cost $2 million dollars.

Mory Kapustianyk of Planetworks Consulting Corporation of Vancouver says the present radio system used in the South Okanagan/Smilkameen area is twenty years old and is ready for upgrading.

Kapustianyk – who helped design the E-Comm system on the Lower Mainland says many improvements are needed and desired by fire departments who all use the same dispatch and communication system.

But he says the Princeton backup system is in a farm barn and unprotected, that 5 fire departments have radio systems that are not well protected and that much of the infrastructure on mountain-tops needs major work.

Board directors were told that the present system allows for interference of dispatch and only luck has prevented a major problem. The consultant says this is due to equipment design not the recent switchover to Kelowna.

The communications report calls for standards to be implemented for fire department communications that are region-wide and that the system should be able to be used for emergency services in the entire RDOS.  It cannot be used for that purpose at the moment.

The new system would take 2 years to complete getting new frequencies,  two new towers and better equipment. The consultant says there must be a built-in monitoring system that allows fire departments to know that all systems are a “Go” and in proper condition.