SULLIVAN COUNTY - Sullivan County will use a $2 million state grant to install permanent national interoperability radio channel repeaters, expanding the county’s ability to communicate with outside emergency agencies during large-scale incidents, according to Alex Rau, the county’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety for E-911 and EMS.

The funding, awarded through the Statewide Interoperable Communications Grant program, will support the installation of repeaters on existing public-safety infrastructure, creating a shared radio platform that allows local responders to communicate directly with state, federal, and out-of-county agencies when operating on different radio systems.

“These repeaters tie together first responders on disparate radio systems and provide a common communications platform during large-scale incidents,” Rau said.

Recent emergencies have underscored the need for such interoperability, including a wildfire last year along the Ulster–Sullivan County border, multiple wildfires along the Shawangunk Ridge involving responders from several counties, and the 50th anniversary of Woodstock in 2019, which required coordination among numerous local and state agencies.

The county will work with its radio vendor, Motorola, to design a system that maximizes coverage countywide, while coordinating with neighboring counties to avoid duplicating infrastructure or overlapping coverage. Some surrounding counties already have similar repeaters installed.

The project is intended to address interoperability challenges rather than specific outages, Rau said. Sullivan County currently deploys portable repeaters when needed, but the grant will allow those capabilities to become permanent and more widely available.

“All emergency services agencies will benefit,” Rau said, including law enforcement, fire departments, EMS, emergency management, 911 dispatch, search and rescue teams, dive teams, and drone units. The system will be activated during major incidents when additional communication capacity or cross-agency coordination is required.

Rau said the project is expected to take between one and two years to complete following final grant contract approval.