I spent the day chasing public safety writers and TV producers in order to get them interested in a story no one has done before. So far no takers. I have been down this road before. Pioneering a new concept or product is not easy. You have to work the press day and night until you get your first hit. Then others follow.

The story I was pitching seems to be an eye opener. That is why I took the assignment. As startling as it may seem, first responders (police, fire, EMS) don’t have compatible two-way radios. That means if a fireman runs into a burning house, there is no way he (or she) can communicate with the police. That is one of the reasons why so many first responders die.

Here was my pitch to the press.

Not too many people know this about First Responders

but their two-way communications equipment is not compatible with others. In other words, the radios that police use are not compatible with fire, fire is not compatible with EMS, and EMS is not compatible with police. That is insane.

I found this out recently from RELM WIRELESS Corp. Officials at the company told me that the major supplier in this business, Motorola, is still selling two-way radios that are not compliant with the APCO Project 25 specifications, an industry-wide standard. That means most of the first responders at events like the Boston Marathon cannot talk to each other. First responder lives were lost in Oklahoma City because fire couldn’t talk to police and the other way around.

I don’t understand how this is possible, but it is. I urge you to take a look into this matter and shed light on it. I can get people in the industry to talk to you.

So now I sit and wait. Not really. I will work the phones. I am eager to get someone to write a story about why agencies buy for price versus compatibility. We know the answer to that, but we can keep asking the question. One would think that someone long before I came would have been shouting this from the rooftops.

I was told there were others that tried to get the attention of the press before on this subject but nothing ever materialized. Let’s see what happens this time.