Southside OKC pursuit

[KK5FM]

OK, so I'm listening to an officer on Santa Fe with his siren going, giving turn-by-turn directions over 159.030, when... the frequency gets really silent. I'm thinking my scanner went deaf! Officers just don't all of a sudden stop talking in the middle of a pursuit! Anyway, about five minutes later, I hear him or another officer advise dispatch that they apparently were having radio problems because dispatch has not been hearing them. They're trying to get a K-9 officer to their location, but the K-9 officer thinks they're in a different location than where they really are, because the K-9 officer heard them give out a location before the car radio (or radio system) went down. So, for a while this morning, there was an officer involved in a pursuit who thought he was talking to the outside world, but his voice didn't get any farther than his microphone. FWIW, it sounded like he was on his car radio during the pursuit call.

 

[CommShrek]

Not widespread but equipment failures do happen. I've had that happen to me before years ago. I was on the dispatch end and the officer was on the pursuit end. Luckily he was smart enough to realize that I wouldn't have stopped answering him and he immediately transitioned to his walkie. Later we found out that he had hit a low branch (he was driving a marked Dodge Ram full size SUV) and knocked the antenna off.

 

[freqscout]

Well the VHF repeaters are, dare I say, notorious for failure. Hefner used to go down once a set. One time during a pursuit Hefner went down and they switched to the other dispatch channel after going car to car and realizing there was no repeater. Kinda scary for the guys involved but at least there was plenty of help. I don't mind the radio going down if there is back-up there. Air 1 was there too talking car to car I believe.