Anyone with a scanner will still be able to listen to Schuylkill County emergency dispatchers handling fire calls, said 911 center director Scott Krater.

Commissioners on Dec. 24 announced the county would spend $5.6 million to buy digital radios for the county's 110 volunteer fire companies.The radios, each costing about $5,000 each, will be distributed this year.While scanners will still pick up communications between responders and dispatchers, talk among firefighters using the digital equipment would not be broadcast."Dispatches will continue to remain the same," Krater said. "So people will be able to hear, for example, Tamaqua fire department respond to an address for a structure fire. That won't change. It's only the on-scene communications that will change."Krater said that a portion of the radios firefighters use at fire scenes will still be analog, the old type."People will be able to hear those portions that remain analog on the scanner. Same thing with fire police. Those things won't change," he said.The county got a special deal from Motorola to buy the 1,140 portable and mobile radios and other communications equipment. It will also buy equipment to supplement those police departments and emergency medical services that bought digital radios as the county complies with the federal mandate to switch from analog to digital communications equipment.Krater has said the number of radios each company gets will be determined by a formula that includes the numbers of engines and tankers, and the number of seats in the vehicles.The county is buying the radios under a seven-year lease/purchase agreement.The first payment is due in the spring of 2017, commissioners said.Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. has said the county plans to offset the cost of the radio purchase in part by leasing out its unused radio frequencies.The county also expects to sell its nursing home, Rest Haven, early this year.The home has been bleeding red ink for years, and commissioners in August announced plans to sell it.