The county jail will be pricing a new radio system to replace the current system that had to be reverted from digital to analog to make it work.

The prison board on Tuesday authorized warden Beau Sneddon to look into the cost of a new system after he reported problems with the existing system.

He said the Motorola radios would miss transmissions, emit weird noises and jumble people’s voices. Radio system contractor BearCom worked hard to find the cause of what was interfering with the radio signals, but couldn’t pinpoint the issue, he said.

“We’ve had nothing but problems with the radios,” Sneddon said.

As a remedy, BearCom switched the system to analog and it is working, but analog service is being phased out, he said.

The best option for the Butler County Prison is to join the county’s 911 radio system because that would allow the prison to directly communicate with 911, local police and the sheriff’s office, which it can’t do now, Sneddon said.

He said the jail paid BearCom $104,000 for the current system, and the company agreed to help the county sell it. The prison has about 70 radios, he said.

“Now, no one can talk to us,” Sheriff Mike Slupe, board chairman, said about the prison radios.

He estimated that a digital, 800MHz radio system, which would allow the prison to communicate with the other agencies, would cost at least $300,000 just for the radios and take at least six months to be delivered.

Slupe said radios are essential for the hundreds of inmate moves that are made daily in the prison, and one incident involving a radio failure could end up costing the jail more than $400,000.

“Digital is desirable over analog,” Slupe said.

The board voted to authorize Sneddon to look into the cost of an 800MHz system.