The following article was published at the daily newspaperThe Trentonian on April 13, 2012: 

    A $2.4 million federal regional grant has been awarded to Hamilton Fire District No. 3, headquartered at Rusling Hose Fire Co. on Rennie Street, for the purposes of sharing a single communications system among multiple towns’ fire services, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith announced Thursday.

    “This federal grant will help a number of towns seeking to upgrade and coordinate their emergency communications equipment,” said Smith, a long-time member of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus.

    The grant manager for the project is Tom Gribbin, chief at Hamilton District 3. Gribbin is arranging shared services agreements with other towns in Mercer County that are choosing to participate. The new system can communicate with those towns opting not to participate via a planned radio cross link, or “patch,” in which a computer ties two frequencies together.
 
    The new system is a 500 megahertz trunking and UHF conventional system, according to Gribbin. It will include new mobile radios for fire vehicles, portable radios, and a GPS tracking system on each apparatus operated by the central dispatch at the Mercer County Emergency Communications Center in Lawrence, located at the John T. Demptster Fire Service Training Center.

    The cost of the project is estimated to be about $2.8 million. The balance of the cost will be shared by the participating local towns.
 
    The funding comes through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) Operations and Safety Grant Program.

    The orginal article was published at:

http://www.trentonian.com/article/20120412/NEWS01/120419862/hamilton-fire-company-wins-federal-grant