Friday fragments - comms news from around the web for 10 January 2014

A weekly round-up of critical communications and public safety radio news for Friday, 10 January 2014.

Spare parts from eBay. Ulster County's E-911 radio system is “on life support" according to John Quick, Ulster town's representative to the Ulster County Fire Advisory Board. Quick says that some equipment still uses vacuum tubes, and spare parts have to be bought from eBay. Consultants have recommended a $20 million upgrade to the latest equipment.

Affairs of state. Abu Dhabi's fleet of presidential vehicles, used during official ceremonies, will begin using the police service's TETRA system for communications. Other institutions, such airports, hospitals and oil companies already use the police system. Meanwhile, in South Africa, Cassidian worked with local companies to extend the South African Police Services' Eastern Cape TETRA system to provide communications during the funeral for Nelson Mandela. An extra 2500 THR9 handheld terminals were acquired for the event.

Deep freeze delays towers. An early onset of cold weather has delayed the construction of antenna towers for a new emergency radio system being installed in Niagara County, New York State. Workers had managed to lay concrete foundations for three of the five towers, but then the ground froze. Now they've going to have to wait until the northern spring before the final two can be laid.

Bundying on. A VHF emergency radio installed on Lady Musgrave Island, near Bundaberg in Queensland, has been repaired and is available again for use. The radio, which operates on marine channel 67, is installed in the island's amenities block and can be used by the public to call for help. The radio was installed following a 1980 drowning tragedy, when it took three days for news to reach the mainland.

More of that Irish luck. Finally, documents from 1983 released from the Irish state archives show that pirate radio and television station broadcasts were causing interference to emergency services radio systems. One memo stated: “Interference has also been caused to airport fire services, taxiing aircraft and aircraft immediately after take-off, to ambulance and Garda radio networks and to radio and television reception."