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It was announced Wednesday that the long-awaited upgrade of the emergency communications system serving residents of Roswell and Chaves County could be finished in December.

David Jones, general manager of Albuquerque-based Code 3 Service, the public safety service company tasked with the project, told board members of the Pecos Valley Regional Communications Center, PVRCC, about progress made and final tasks to complete before the new communications system could be fully operating.

“We're finally at the tail end of this thing,” Jones commented.

Most of the people at the meeting were emergency services personnel, and they responded by smiling.

Several towers that compose the paging portion of the system were discussed. According to charts provided by Code 3, the dispatching tower named “Comanche” is used for paging by firefighters in Roswell, Dexter, Chaves County fire units and American Medical Response.  

The PVRCC Dispatch Center, another part, provides backup paging radio. Fire departments in the south portion of the county use a repeater named “Dunken.”

The towers tend to serve more than one communication purpose within this system.

Board members approved a motion to obtain a new frequency licensing for the South 285 dispatch tower and have Hagerman Fire and EMS use it instead of the Town of Hagerman Tower. If the board hadn't acted, Hagerman Fire would have had to obtain its own frequency license to page through the PVRCC Dispatch Center.

The first phase of the communication upgrade project was completed in July 2021, when Roswell Police and Fire departments, Chaves County Sheriff's Office and Dexter Police, Fire and Rescue functions moved from analog to digital systems.

Updating equipment in outlying areas was the goal of Phase Two, but this latter work has taken more time than originally anticipated because of supply chain shortages linked to the pandemic, Jones said.

Some communications by emergency personnel have failed to go through. The Dispatch Center has sometimes had to act as a go-between during these situations to ensure these messages are delivered and received.

This included a problem with communications noted by a Roswell Police sergeant last month.

During the Sept. 13 meeting of Roswell's Public Safety Committee, Council member Juliana Halvorson asked about the matter and read from the RPD sergeant's log the description of what happened.

She told the people attending that meeting she wanted to make sure department personnel had what they needed to do their jobs.

RPD Chief Philip Smith explained later that it was an issue stemming from the changeover from analog to a digital format itself, which can be “quite common, but irregular.”

However, Smith then stressed that overall communications have been significantly better since the changeover commenced and described such issues as being “nothing like we were dealing with before.”

Code 3 has been working on these and other glitches as they have been occurring with this still-new system, Jones said Wednesday.

All communications towers within the network should be operating soon. And the process of reprogramming about 1,000 radios used by a variety of agencies in Roswell and other parts of Chaves County during all types of emergencies still needs to be completed, Jones said.

It was pointed out during the meeting by Jones and others that redundancy is necessary in an emergency communications system. When equipment breaks down somewhere, calls that would have gone through the equipment that failed can instead be rerouted through other portions of the system that are operating.

Once completed, these updates are expected to serve the area for the next 20-30 years, Jones added.

Reporter Terri Harber can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 308, or at reporter03@rdrnews.com.

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