UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
Office of Fire and Aviation
3833 So. Development Avenue
Boise, ID 83705-5354

May 14, 2004
In Reply Refer To:
1292 (FA265) I
Ref. IM No. 2004-149


EMS Transmission 05/19/04
Memorandum

To: Assistant Director, Information Resources Management (WO500)

From: Director, Office of Fire and Aviation

Subject: National Telecommunications and Information Administration Narrowband
Mandate Exception Waivers

This memorandum is a formal request from the Office of Fire and Aviation (OF&A) for a waiver from the analog narrowband and digital narrowband radio operations mandate for Bureau of Land Management (BLM) personnel that is to take effect on January 1, 2005.

· The P25 radios that have been tested for the last several years are still not reliable enough to rely solely on their operation for fire operations.

· When a repeater that that has been narrow-banded and is keyed by a radio that is still in wideband mode, the repeater can over-modulates and causes the transmission to cut out. The possibility for this to occur increases dramatically if the person using the radio is speaking loud or yelling into the radio at, a time when it is of the utmost importance that we not lose communications.

· Many of our cooperators are not mandated to narrowband their frequencies and compatibility with them is an issue that still needs addressing.

· The users are also concerned about volume levels, cloning, and battery consumption issues with the handheld radios.

· Training on the use of the new radios and on potential problems between narrow band and wide band transmissions has not been conducted consistently across the Bureau of Land Managementureau.

While these problems are being have been addressed and the manufacturers are working on fixing them, the P-25 radios are not stable enough to rely on.

Due to the high risk of fire and aviation operations, known radio modulation problems with wideband users, lack of training with the new radios , and the need to work on an interagency basis with local, state and government cooperators, it would be unsafe for us to make the narrow band or digital transition until some of the problems have been worked out. 

Formal testing and evaluation needs to occur in parallel with ongoing fire and aviation operations to identify any unresolved issues. This parallel testing would need to be conducted so as to not impact ongoing fire and aviation operations. Mitigations and resolutions to the operational issues should be established and widely distributed to the fire community prior to our conversion to narrow band or digital. This parallel testing would need to be conducted so as to not impact ongoing fire and aviation operations.

The BLM Fire and Aviation program will be ready to transition to narrowband when the radio systems are reliable and the safety of our firefighters is ensured.

Signed by: Authenticated by:
Timothy M. Murphy Pat Lewis
Acting Director Supervisory Mgmt. Asst.
Office of Fire and Aviation Office Services