House Vote Not To Delay DTV Helps Prince George's County

LANHAM, Md. (WUSA) -- At the radio shop for Prince George's County they are worried the vote by the House of Representatives not to delay the upcoming transition from analog to digital television may not be long-lived. So why are people who have worked three years to design a new state of the art radio system for police and firefighters concerned about politics? And why are Prince George's County political leaders, who were supporters of candidate Barack Obama, lobbying against one of the initial proposals of his new adminstration.

The answer lies in the county's almost 40-year-old public safety radio system. It has left Prince George's as the only jurisdiction in the immediate Washington area without interoperability. The word came to the forefront after the attacks of September 11 and refers to the ability of first responders to communicate across jurisdictional lines.

Spending almost $80-million, Prince George's County is working on the final stages of the new radio system that would, among other things, solve the interoperability problem. But that system shares some of the same radio spectrum that is currently being used by analog TV transmissions. Prince George's County can't turn its system on until the DTV conversion happens.

A delay of even a few weeks could stall the county's radio system for a year. That's because fine tuning and testing of the radios has to be done when leaves are on the trees. The leaves actually can reduce how far the radio waves travel. The work, scheduled to begin in April, would have to be moved to Spring, 2010.

One help, if the issue is revisited by lawmakers, could be if Channel 62 in Frederick, Maryland shuts down its analog transmissions earlier than any extended deadline. Public Safety Communications Deputy Director Wayne McBride says they are communicating with Maryland Public Television to see if that is a possibility.