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Maintain Dispatch Autonomy and take advantage of Regional Public Safety Resources – The Wake Forest Story

For Wake Forest, it started in 2007, when Forsyth County and the City of Winston-Salem Wake Forestcompleted a trunked digital 800 MHz public safety grade radio network and offered to lease radio frequencies to Wake Forest. The department accepted the offer because using the same radio system allowed interoperability, and soon its police and EMS transmissions were on the 800 MHz system.

As the system was used, however, gaps in radio coverage began to appear on campus and became more apparent daily, particularly when the radios were used indoors. Many of the school’s concrete and brick buildings were impenetrable by the 800 MHz radio waves, so the radios were often inadequate when the officers found themselves needing to use their portables indoors.

To solve the problem, Wake Forest investigated having their own radio system, however they did not want to give up access to the regional 800MHZ service.

An article here in Campus Safety Magazines describes the innovative solution – from Catalyst, of course!