Swedish Rakel TETRA network works well during forest fire
During the forest fire in Västmanland, MSB deposited resources to enhance the Rakel network in order to facilitate communication for emergency services.
Among other things, several base stations in the area were upgraded with double capacity and MSB has lent forty Rakel Mobile radios to emergency staff that was active on site.
During the forrest fire, technically, Rakel has worked well, however, there were some problems with the methodology. For example regarding the interaction between different organizations on the ground," said Anders Grundin, Rakel Project manager at MSB.
When we saw that the fire began to escalate, we inserted extra coverage on base stations in the affected area. A number of base stations were upgraded with double the capacity to handle the increase in traffic, which gave the desired results.
A mobile base station was on standby incase any of the base stations in the region would fail. However it was not used, said Anders Grundin.
MSB has lent forty Rakel Mobile radios to operators on the ground in the affected area in order to facilitate communication. We have also provided support by answering technical questions about the Rakel system.
The area has a number of base stations that cover the area. The area is hilly terrain, which means that there are blank spots in the area where Rakel does not have coverage. In these cases, there are certain features of the Rakel network, who can facilitate communication at these locations. For example, one can use a strategically placed vehicle mounted mobile radio who has contact with Rakel, network set in GMO mode (Gateway Mode Operation).
Going forward, we will make a detailed evaluation of how Rakel worked so that we can take the experience of this to face similar situations in the future, but also to improve the national guidelines for collaborationon the RAkle network, says Anders.
