POLICE SET FOR NEW 911 SYSTEM

To compare the old central dispatch room at the Cape Girardeau Police Department to the new -- featuring the Emergency 911 (E911) equipment -- would be like comparing a single-engine biplane to the Stealth Bomber.

"This is the most modern (911) system on the market," said Juanita Henley, head of communications at the Cape Girardeau Police Department. "It's been a long road to get here, but we're ready to go on line as scheduled."

The entire county and most of North Scott County will become 911-automated Tuesday when systems go on-line in Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City. Ceremonial first-calls will be made between departments to initiate the systems.

For the past few weeks, E811 test calls have been placed, ensuring the reliability and accuracy of the systems.

Yet, in a way, the systems are no way finished. The data bank in each system will be augmented with every call the officers go out on starting Tuesday. Information about medical history of the resident, other calls to the residence and the nature of the past calls will be readily available to the system operators as such information is recorded.

"The hospitals will provide us with some of the medical information we need on the seriously ill or the elderly," said Henley. "But a lot of the information we can only gain through experience."

The main feature of the new Cape Girardeau city system is a single screen that sits to near the inside of each dispatcher's console, which will display the street address, name and phone number from whence the call originated. The system is designed to do this a split second before the phone actually rings.

For the large part, the old console was thrown away. The logging recorder -- a massive reel-to-reel audio recorder for all phone lines and radio transmissions -- was sold to another city.

"The old console was badly outdated and it was difficult if not impossible to find parts to make repairs," Henley said. "It wouldn't have been of any use to anyone."

The Cape Girardeau E911 console has four screens: one for the computer aided dispatch (CAD), which displays the location and status of all street officers; another for the state criminal records system called MULES; one for the E911 display; and the last as a control grid for the dispatchers.

The grid is controlled by a ball roller which looks like something out of a high-tech video game. The dispatcher needs to move the arrow up, down or over to the box marked with what he or she needs and "click on" to call it up.

The ball roller can page the fire stations, send alert tones to the patrol officers, link the system with other stations throughout the region, change radio frequencies and even operate functions such as opening the garage door and turning on the fuel pump in the back lot.

"If we need to talk to two or three different agencies at the same time, we can open a channel to get fire, police and public works," said Marilyn Klipfel, a veteran dispatcher with the police department.

Although the system comes equipped with backup microphones to transmit information over the radio, the dispatchers are now using headsets. To open the channel, dispatchers have the choice of pushing a switch, keying a foot pedal on the floor or pushing a button on the roller pad.

"The headsets took some getting used to," Klipfel said. "I have been accused of talking too loud and breathing into the microphone.

"I was used to the old system that you had to talk loudly into," she said. "But we all like these now; they're convenient and they're comfortable."

When using the 911 system, the dispatcher can answer a call using the headset instead of the phone. A dispatcher can also begin to notify patrolling cars about the call without the caller knowing.

"Talking to a person on the headset takes out a lot of the background noise you get with the normal phone lines," said Klipfel.

The address of the 911 call will be displayed a split second before the phone actually rings. Even if people let the phone ring once and hang up, the screen will display the address from which the call was placed.

Currently, dispatchers have to contact the phone company to run a trace on a 911 hang-up.

"Traces can take from four minutes to four hours," said Klipfel. "In an emergency situation, you just don't have that kind of time to wait.

"Now we can get an officer heading in that direction immediately," she said.

Another feature of the new system allows all information automatically displayed on the 911 screen to be transferred onto the computer-aided dispatch system memory with the touch of a key.

"We'll have to enter miscellaneous information such as the type of call and other information gathered on the phone, but the name, address, phone number and type of call will automatically be entered into the computer," said Klipfel.

The 911 phone lines will store the calls on a tape-recorded system for about two hours so dispatchers can easily go back and check the information given by the caller, if necessary.

The information is also saved to a voice-activated recorder which has a 275-hour saving capability with a four-hour built-in buffer in case of an emergency or if the system goes down. The cassettes the radio transmissions and phone calls are saved onto are smaller than a conventional music-cassette and can be easily stored.

In case of a total power outage and failure of the station's generator to turn on, the E911 system and the phone console has a four-hour battery capability.

After that, all emergency calls would be routed to the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department, which has the capability to dispatch city police, fire and public works crews.

For the first time ever, the control room has a third dispatching station, which has the capabilities of the other two, but also can be used to control the other two.

"Right now we're only staffing the third console for training and in emergencies," said Henley. "Someday we hope to be able to utilize all three during a normal shift."

The system is also now linked with the fire department. After giving a call to the fire department, the dispatcher need only to push a button to make the information on his or her screen print out on a special printer at the responding fire station.

This feature makes it unnecessary for firefighters to call the police station for information regarding the call after they have returned to the station.

"There was a lot of hard work that went into the installation of the new dispatch center and the coming on line of the equipment," said Henley. "I felt relieved after the construction was over; now there's so much to remember."