Glitch knocked out police radios

By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Staff Writer

City officials yesterday said a software problem was to blame for an eight-hour shutdown Thursday of portions of the Honolulu Police Department's new digital radio system.

Officers who were cut off switched to the old analog radio system. The radio problem did not affect officer safety or hamper police response time to emergencies, HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said.

Yu said the radio problems began about 3 p.m. Thursday, with the digital radio system back online at 11:45 p.m.

City spokeswoman Carol Costa said technicians on Wednesday and Thursday morning erred when they upgraded some of the software in the city's digital communications system.

"They did some additional upgrades and one of the software programs was not set correctly," Costa said.

Because of the problem, radio communications for police District 1 (Central Honolulu), District 3 (Pearl City) and District 7 (East Honolulu) were switched to analog during that period, Costa said.

Previous complications with police use of the city's digital communications system prompted $60 million in various hardware and software improvements made to the system.

In April the department converted its communications system to all digital. Police had sought a complete digital switchover when the city acquired the system in 1998, but gaps in the radio coverage, along with time required for hardware and software changes, forced postponement.

The city in 2000 promised to the police union, but has yet to install, digital radio antennas in Wai'anae, Diamond Head and 'Ahuimanu intended to improve service.