By Mary Drier (Contact / Staff Bio)
June 25, 2008 - 12:00 a.m. EST

UNIONVILLE ‹ “Can you hear me now?” shouldn’t be a question that is asked when it comes to public safety.

The ACW ambulance service and fire department want something done about Tuscola County’s Central Dispatch service to the northern end of the county.

“We’ve been having problems getting pages ever since the dispatch service was put in, and it’s getting worse,” said Ken Currey, a representative for the ACW ambulance and fire department. “The first year it was put in, the reception was bad. Some changes were made. It was okay for awhile, but now it’s just as bad.

“We missed two runs last week. We’ve continuously missed runs... That’s unacceptable.”

The ACW services covers the townships of Akron, Columbia and Wisner, and the village of Unionville.

Reception is the worst March - August. In 2006, a transmitter was added in the Akron area in hopes of correcting the problem. It helped for awhile, but the problem is back and worse than ever.

Besides Akron, there are transmitters in Caro and Mayville.

Currey asked county commissioners if a transmitter could be placed in or near Unionville.

Currently, there’s a 105-foot water tower in the village and a 200-foot cellular phone tower north of town where a transmitter could be placed.

“You need to do something before someone dies,” said Currey. “I hear the Cass City area is having similar problems.”

A transmitter costs about $20,000. Although the county contracts with American Messaging for radio service, the county would have to pay for the transmitter and the company would own the equipment. Plus, the contract with them ends in October.

Central Dispatch Director Bob Klenk said the company only guarantees paging service at “street level,” which doesn’t guarantee the ability to pick up a paging signal inside of a building.

Also, the weather affects the paging signal.

“Rain and snow can create problems with radios... just like it does with satellite (television),” said Klenk. “I just started making phone calls on this to see what can be done.”

Commissioner Don McLane pushed for action on the matter.

“We need to take care of this before something serious happens,” he said.

Besides putting up an additional transmitter, it was also suggested the transmitter that was put up in Akron might be able to be moved to the Unionville area.

Klenk said he would contact American Messaging about those options, and have additional information for Thursday’s commissioners’ committee meeting.

Meanwhile, as a backup until the issue is settled, the fire and ambulance service made a formal request to have dispatch send automatic double pages to them when there is an emergency in hopes that one of the two pages will go through.

Mary Drier is a staff writer for the Tuscola County Advertiser. She can be reached at drier@tcadvertiser.com.