This portion of the DAS eNewsCenter is for IT Service Delivery Division customers.
 


More users benefiting from MARCS
-- ITSD MARCS Project Office, January 2004

(The following article originally appeared in the January/February 2004 edition of the Ohio Homeland Security Newsletter. For the complete newsletter, click here.)

MARCS, Ohio's Multi-Agency Radio Communications System, is clearing new milestones en route to its scheduled completion late this year or in early 2005.
• The Ohio Department of Natural Resources recently received transmitters that will allow its officers to use MARCS portable radios in conjunction with their in-vehicle versions. This will give ODNR personnel the maximum benefit of the voice radios whether they are in their vehicles or on foot.  
  • The Ohio Department of Health is distributing its first shipment of MARCS radios to ODH personnel throughout central Ohio and to several county departments of health as well.  
  • The Ohio Department of Transportation has assigned several MARCS radios to officials monitoring traffic on the I-71 corridor between Columbus and Cleveland.  
  • The Ohio Attorney General's Organized Crime Unit has deployed MARCS radios among its multi-county task force.
  
  • Columbus and Franklin County public safety officials are using MARCS to establish emergency inter-agency communications.  
  • The MARCS program has reached agreement with the city of Akron allowing the network to share space on an existing city radio tower. The arrangement will speed completion of the network in northern Ohio.  
 

MARCS has been described as the backbone of Ohio's Homeland Security programs. It will replace outdated single-agency radio systems with a state-of-the-art communications network, providing state and local emergency personnel with voice and data transmission of digital clarity, regardless of weather or terrain. Construction is complete on 107 of 200 towers planned statewide.

DAS manages the MARCS project. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and the Ohio Departments of Commerce, Public Safety, Rehabilitation and Correction, Taxation and Youth Services also are participating.