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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: High-tech two-way radio communications ProComm’s modern radio technology improves team communications and enhances safety Alan Bailey Petroleum Directory Contributing Writer
With the widespread use of cell phones, it's easy to forget the value of portable radios for wireless communications. However, try using your cell phone to maintain continuous contact with several people, all at the same time, and you'll discover the benefits of two-way radios.
"The one-to-many is the biggest feature (of radio), where you can press the button and talk to a hundred radios or a thousand radios, instead of the cellular one-to-one call," Gary Peters, president and CEO of ProComm Alaska told Petroleum News. The ability of people to communicate by radio from any location also enhances personal safety, he said. Peters has a first-hand working knowledge of the oilfield, with 12 years of oilfield industry experience before changing careers in 1987. “I learned the value of two-way radio while I was running casing and rental tool companies in the late 1970s and early 1980s”.
ProComm Alaska specializes in the supply of Motorola two-way radios, radio systems and pagers for industrial and public safety use.
Formed in October 2000 Peters and his wife Linda formed ProComm Alaska in October 2000, when they bought Arctic Slope Regional Corp.'s Motorola service shops located in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Wasilla.
"We bid on the company and actually won the bid and turned it into ProComm Alaska," Peters said.
Since buying the company, Peters and his wife have grown ProComm Alaska from 15 employees to about 26, and expanded with a new facility in Soldotna.
“We’ve grown the business a lot, because of the tremendous loyalty our customers have exhibited” Peters said. “It’s been a great thing for us to be a part of it.”
As part of the company's expansion, ProComm Alaska has changed from being just a two-way radio dealer to becoming a supplier of sophisticated communications systems.
"We're what we call a Motorola Authorized Two-way Radio Dealer — that's our basic dealership," Peters said. "...Due to our performance and capabilities, a couple of years ago we were appointed a Motorola Authorized Radio System Specialist, which means we can sell and service a lot of the high-tier products." ProComm Alaska is also the only Motorola Service Station, or MSS, in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Wasilla and Soldotna.
The company is also a Motorola "Select Systems Dealership" — that enables the company to supply E911 electronic dispatch console equipment, mobile data equipment, E911 CAD systems, and complex public safety radio systems for 911 call centers.
Peters himself is qualified to design intricate and complex Motorola CENTRACOM™ Gold Elite dispatch console communications systems for a variety of applications. Two-way radios for the oil industry Since most people, vehicles and facilities in the oilfields have radios, the sale of two-way radios and one-way pagers to the oil industry represents a large part of ProComm Alaska's business. The company also installs and maintains the repeater stations that enable radio communications over long distances.
"Safety's a big thing," Peters said. "People need to know where people are. In an extreme environment they need to be in communication with each other all the time."
ProComm Alaska is currently undertaking the expensive and time-consuming process of certification for the repair of the intrinsically safe radios that are used in the oilfields, Natha Thompson, ProComm's director of sales and marketing said. Without this certification, the company has to send intrinsically safe equipment back to the manufacturer for repair, rather than doing the repairs in Alaska, Thompson said.
Lifeline™ ProComm Alaska is the only Alaska dealer for Motorola's Lifeline system — this new system takes workplace safety to a level beyond the use of simple two-way radios.
"It uses two-way radio telemetry with a computer system to monitor your employees and their environment in confined spaces and hazardous workplaces," Thompson said.
Each worker carries a radio-operated personal safety monitor, linked to detectors for hazardous gases and vapors. The system constantly polls each monitor and retrieves data back to a central console. If there's a hazardous situation, the console flags an alarm.
A "man down" function polls the worker every few minutes, to make sure that he or she can respond. This function also enables hands-free, two-way radio communication, in case the worker becomes incapacitated.
And by placing fixed monitors around a hazardous area such as an oil spill, the hazard response team can use the system to do perimeter monitoring without the need to continuously deploy people in the hazardous site. Control systems Also, as part of the company's advanced systems support, ProComm Alaska has installed a supervisory control and data acquisition or SCADA system to monitor the telemetry system for a client on the North Slope. The client's telemetry system operates over microwave circuits and provides a data link from the well pads back to the gathering centers.
The SCADA system continuously monitors the telemetry system, to provide an instant alert for any fault that might occur; this monitoring ensures that fire and gas alarms, for example, remain fully functional all of the time.
"We monitor about 1,800 points online. All those alarms can be reported simultaneously in less than three seconds," Peters said.
Public safety Public safety in Alaska has proved to be another major business sector for ProComm Alaska.
"Public safety is huge for us," Peters said. "We maintain almost all of the major dispatch operations and military bases in the state."
For example, the company installs and maintains police car radios and the repeater stations that public safety officers use for long-distance radio communications; ProComm Alaska owns and operates the repeater station site on the summit of Mount Susitna.
"We do ... public safety dispatch consoles and 911 software and 911 centers," Thompson said. "We do ... programming for those entities that need secure, encrypted voice communications."
Alaska Land Mobile Radio System ProComm Alaska is providing technical expertise for the implementation of the Alaska Land Mobile Radio System or ALMRS for the state of Alaska and the U.S. Department of Defense. This new Motorola Voice over IP digital two-way radio technology brings all federal, state, local, and military users into one common system for mutual aid and for mission critical communications in case of a major incident, threat or disaster. Today on this new system, you can literally talk instantly from Juneau to Fairbanks and Anchorage on a portable radio, with crystal clear telephone quality audio. Eventually ALMRS will cover the majority of the population base and road systems around the state.
"You can literally turn the channel selector on the portable radio ... push your push-to-talk button and talk to any number of officials statewide that need to be in on this event," Peters said. "... It’s brand new, first-of-it's-kind in-the-world technology."
Resource tracking State-of-the-art systems like “voice and mobile data” integrate traditional radio technology with digital computer technology. Add global positioning system or GPS technology into the mix and you have the capability to use radio systems to track the locations of resources such as cars and trucks. ProComm Alaska already supports this type of technology.
Resource tracking proves particularly valuable when managing a crisis such as an oil spill. ProComm Alaska can also equip mobile command vehicles with portable radio repeaters, satellite telephones and microwave lines for voice and data for use during a crisis response.
With his team of experts and an expanding business, Peters is proud of the company and its ability to deliver a quality product at an affordable price.
"We do everything from the plain vanilla to absolutely the most high-tech systems available in the world today," Peters said. "... we have technicians on call around the clock, seven days a week to respond anywhere for any public safety or industrial customer emergency."
And, with interesting developments in the Alaska oil industry and an expanding need for public safety, Peters sees a bright future.
"We're in the right place, at the right time, with the right product to make it all come together," Peters said. "Our mission at ProComm Alaska is to provide 'PROfessional COMMunications for productive Alaskans'.”
Editor's note: Alan Bailey owns Badger Productions in Anchorage, Alaska.
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