Zello helps first responders communicate across wide geographic area

The team at Hendersen County Emergency Services responds across 375 square miles in a community in North Carolina of about 125,000 people. The team regularly sends first responders across the state for mutual aid purposes, such as to the coast of North Carolina to provide aid during hurricane season.

Traditional land mobile radio communications may have limitations such as building construction types or geographic coverage areas. To address these limitations, in 2019, Jimmy Brissie, Director of the Henderson County Emergency Services, and his team installed an interoperability gateway and signed up with Zello to interface their radio system with the cloud.

By augmenting their radio system with Zello, the team can use in-building Wi-Fi and cell networks to maintain communications even in fringe areas for traditional radio coverage. Talk groups reduce the need to use cumbersome group texts over cell phones or to distribute expensive radio equipment. Additionally, when the team has traveled across the state to respond to natural disasters, they have used Zello to communicate back with the home office, and with other first responder organizations joining the response from across the state.

Learn how you can sign up for the Zello for First Responders program today.