You could be safer thanks to a major change in communication for law enforcement.
Public safety officials in Mankato plan to turn off the scanners and go digital.
It comes with a price tag of $300,000.
Administrative Commander Sandi Schnorenberg says, "I know many nights officers are frustrated because there is so much traffic on the radio they can't get through."
It's a problem many emergency officials experience and they say it's only going to get worse. Administrative Commander Sandi Schnorenburg says the FCC is making everyone on a certain spectrum of radio frequency to compress what they use by January 2013, due to limited space.
"They call it narrow bandings, if your radios aren't capable of narrow banding you have to buy news ones." So instead of updating the old system they have decided to click onto a whole new wavelength and go digital. It's called Allied Radio Matrix for Emergency Response, or A.R.M.E.R.
Schnorenburg says, "The new technology allows us to not use a frequency. You're using a talk group and sharing frequency in a trunk system. It's kind of managing the radio like a phone system, where you can call one number and many people can call in."
Mankato fire crews received a grant for their new radios but the police force is going to have to come up with $300,000. Schnorenburg says they are looking at using a state bond.
"Yeah it's expensive to have to buy new radios, but we were going to have to buy some of those anyway's."
With the help of MnDOT the state has covered the cost of putting up the necessary digital towers across the state. So once Mankato Public Safety crews are done with training they won't be any delay getting through on the new scanners.
Public Safety hopes to be up and running on the new system by the end of May.
