Remember  - NEW YORK — On Sept. 11, 2001, as firefighters rushed into the smoldering twin towers, their radios went dead. Police on the scene couldn’t hear orders from their superiors. And none of the agencies responding to the nation’s deadliest terrorist attack could communicate with one another.

“To this day, I have nightmares of police officers calling for help and not being able to answer them,” said Bruce Adler, who was a radio dispatcher that day.

In the years since, New York City emergency agencies have upgraded equipment to adapt to the unforeseen, built in redundancies and increased training. Historically tense relationships among police and firefighters have eased some: The agencies train together and can now talk via radios in an emergency.

But first responders here say it’s not good enough and they hope legislation will be passed by the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 authorizing creation of a national network where police and fire departments around the country can talk to each other and share photos, video and other critical data.

In my last message, I mentioned that it is my belief that tactical communications must continue to evolve in order to support warfighter mission success. I believe the same is true with first responders, law enforcement and emergency services. I also would think that the lessons of 9/11, which point to a failure of proper communication systems, require the response of government and industry to focus beyond simple upgrade to actual evolution.

Of course, with this, as with military communication, we must maintain upgrades and design changes of the accessories that mate with these tactical communications radios to enhance the operations to which they have evolved. At CJ, we have made our business doing this with military radio and now have used that experience to do so for law enforcement. Our new Falcon lightweight tactical headsets modified for use with police radio meet the goal of support to our local warfighter’s mission of peace keeping and civilian protection at the community level.

Sept. 11 was a convergence of the worst possible problems in communication technology — a jammed commercial network made cell phone use impossible. Police and firefighter radio networks were not compatible. Evolution of radio, repeater and network tactical communications have come a long way, yet need to find their way to all levels of emergency services, from major city forces to small rural towns. At CJ we look forward to the challenge of offering our audio enhancement to all who are in need.