Walkie-talkies improve campus police communication

August 4, 2004

The CMU Police department purchased 12 new walkie-talkies with a
federal grant that will provide efficient police communication on
campus and across Isabella County.

The purchase of the new gadgets was funded by a 2003 Federal
Homeland Security Grant to Isabella County. An allocation of $9,147 for
the 12 walkie-talkies was approved by the Law Enforcement Consortium
and the Isabella County Board of Commissioners.

“The walkies that we had were quite old, and these new walkies have
scan zones in them with a lot more frequencies,” said CMU Police Chief
Stan Dinius.

Dinius said the new walkie-talkies are more efficient and do not
break down as much, unlike the old walkie-talkies that have fewer
communication capabilities.

“There are more scan zones in the new walkie-talkies — so we can
plug a series of zones to be scanned for different events,” he said.

For example, CMU Police can scan more local zones, such as for a
football game where traffic and patrolling can become hectic.

“We can go to a particular zone to operate with our students only
and utilize it for traffic and patrol and so forth for an event on
campus. Whereas, if we wanted to go countywide we can scan all the
county police frequencies and be able to hear what is going on
countywide,” Dinius said.

The old walkie-talkies only have 16 channels, while the new ones
have more than 100 channels

“It has the capabilities to do some specific zone communication, and
it just makes it more efficient to operate with communications,” Dinius
said. “It is absolutely a great improvement for us.”

Dinius said he does not know if the new walkie-talkies will reduce
crime, but it will help CMU Police in “addressing situations in an
emergency nature,” he said.