Los Angeles County consists of 4,000 square miles and is home to more than 100 police/fire/EMS agencies, and nearly as many incompatible public safety radio systems. Unfortunately, the borders of the agencies are now running together and resulting in multi-agency responses becoming a daily occurrence. The Mutual Aid agreements of Los Angeles County ensure that they have sufficient public safety personnel to respond to any man-made or natural incident, however they have not had the capability to communicate between agencies. That is the reason the county purchased a Raytheon First Responder Unit. It is a mobile interoperable radio platform and command center, all housed inside a Chevy Suburban SUV. The First Responder Unit is built around Raytheon JPS Communications’ ACU-1000 Modular Interconnect System. The ACU-1000 works like an interoperational telephone switch: just plug in 10 different radios and 2 cell phones, and the ACU-1000 will automatically switch conversations back and forth between them. Both the ACU-1000, and First Responder come with a fold-down satellite antenna and INMARSAT-B two-way satellite system capable of handling voice data and streaming video, plus a separate GlobalStar handset for satellite calls when the fold-down antenna is not in use. The Responder also carries a transceiver pre-set to popular police and fire frequencies, a built-in Wi-Fi network that is connected to the onboard satellite system and Wi-Fi-equipped laptop computers and video cameras that can be used away from the truck. Through the purchase of a First Responder unit the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has deployed the most affordable, most reasonable interoperable solution available today. References