Simoco Wireless Solutions Installs a DMR Tier III Trunking System for Mornington Shire Council, Australia

Simoco Wireless Solutions was selected to provide a new DMR Tier III trunked system for Mornington Shire Council, on Mornington Island. Mornington is the northernmost and largest of 22 islands that form the Wellesley Islands group within the Gulf of Carpentaria. The island is home to the small community of Gununa with a population fewer than 1,200 people.

The island’s main communication was the use of mobile phones and council staff often would see a disruption to the mobile phone service. A new trunked system comprised of Simoco’s leading distributed architecture provides a cost effective, resilient and scalable solution for the island. Additionally, Omnitronics RediTALK-Flex Radio Dispatch Consoles, fixed desk mobile radios and SDP660 portables were part of the overall solution. The RediTALK-Flex consoles allow emergency / duress monitoring and GPS tracking of the terminals in the field. A CB repeater and marine base station repeater were installed to provide communications around the community for local residents and direct communication for those entering out to the sea.

For council workers on the island, the new solution provides enhanced worker safety with features such as duress alarm, lone worker and man down alarms when staff visit council housing as well as aiding in the coordination of local disaster management. The key benefit however of the digital radio solution has been the reliable communications across the island and out to sea. Council workers have peace of mind that communications will get through and as a result this has increased efficiency in operations with the availability of real time communication between different teams. Radio coverage has been greatly improved across the island and provides workers a streamlined communication platform in the event of disasters.

Peter Scarlata, Chief Executive Officer at Simoco Wireless Solutions, said: “Yet again organisations are placing trust in our proven Simoco Xd technology and the installation at Mornington Island provides another great example of the proven benefits by using a distributed architecture providing cost effectiveness, efficiency, reliability, wide area coverage and resilience”.

John Florenca, Chief Executive Officer at Omnitronics said “The solution at Mornington is a great fit for current needs and if demand increases in the future, the island can easily add additional operators and talkpaths. RediTALK-Flex Radio Dispatch provides council workers a great radio dispatch system that meets their high standards in regards to location capabilities, reliability, scalability, and interoperability”.

Simoco engineers have completed the work at the island and are providing 24x7 remote support. Features such as man down, lone worker, GPS, Bluetooth and emergency calling align with the council’s health and safety policies, and provide peace of mind for those in the field. Teams place trust in the new communications solution and are confident that that the new equipment will work in the harsh environments they are used to in daily operations. This is due to the reliable, high-performing hardware and technology from Simoco, as well as user training provided by Simoco engineers.