HPD goes to VIPER radio system


The Henderson City Council unanimously passed a budget resolution during its regular short session meeting on Monday to allow the Henderson Police Department to continue to implement its transition to the North Carolina Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responses (VIPER).

The HPD and the Vance County Sheriff’s Office applied for a joint grant for this purpose. Henderson began using the new state standard 800 MHz on Monday, August 17, 2009. It is unknown exactly when the Sheriff’s Office will make the transition.

According to Henderson Police Captain Perry Twisdale, the merits of the VIPER program is that all agencies can use it at the same time and are able to work incidents without tying up the 911 system with relaying messages. Also, the state maintains the system’s broadcast repeaters and towers.

The VIPER system has much better coverage, Twisdale told council members.

An analysis of the events of September 11, 2001 showed that there were serious issues surrounding the use of different communication standards between different public safety agencies responding to the disasters of that day.

Twisdale told the council that Henderson police communications will work as far away as Raleigh and the eastern part of the state.

Member Mike Inscoe noted that existing police scanners are no longer usable. Twisdale responded that police frequencies can still be scanning “if you want to buy a really expensive one”.