Grayson County first responders shift radio traffic to a digital system

Grayson County's first responders are moving their radio traffic to a digital system, a shift the Collinsville Fire Department described to residents while explaining its apparatus numbers and dispatch terminology, and one county commissioners authorized in January 2025 using roughly $954,000 in federal pandemic relief money.

Commissioners Court records show the Jan. 21, 2025 action covered a Motorola APX portable and vehicle radio upgrade for several departments, drawn from American Rescue Plan funds. The invoice in the agenda package lists 102 units, 60 APX NEXT portable radios and 42 APX8500 mobile radios. The county's own paperwork does not quite agree on the price; the agenda item and the attached invoice sit $100 apart.

Motorola's data sheet for the APX NEXT portables lists P25 Phase 1 and Phase 2 digital trunking, conventional P25 operation and ASTRO 25 voice and data. That standard also sets a threshold for state money: Texas eGrants will not spend Statewide Emergency Radio Infrastructure funds on amateur, FMS, GMRS or other radios that are not P25 compliant.

Commissioners have leased tower space as well. On July 29, 2025, they approved an agreement with Crossroads Communications for a public-safety tower site covering southeastern and eastern Grayson County, at $1,200 a month in the first year on an initial three-year term.

Older equipment is staying in service. A county fixed-asset transfer form shows commissioners approved moving 50 radios from the Sheriff's Office to the Fire Marshal's Office on Feb. 24, 2026, most of them APX 6000 handhelds.

The next step crosses the county line. A Feb. 10, 2026 resolution would have joined the Sheriff's Office with Cooke County and the City of Denison on a fiscal 2027 application, but the county's item tracker says the item was tabled. A Texoma Council of Governments board packet describes the 2026 application as a bundle of communications needs from Bonham, Denison, Gainesville, Sherman, Cooke County, Fannin County and Grayson County, with equipment passing to participating agencies on permanent loan. TCOG's worksheet gives Grayson County the largest of the three shares in the joint Cooke County, Denison and Grayson tower project, and lists a separate Gainesville tower request of about $775,000.

The state asks for no local match and requires the Statewide Interoperability Coordinator to validate planned purchases before anything is bought.

The Department of Public Safety's 2025 report from that office counts a shared P25 system as the top rung for voice interoperability. Texas scored 3.74 on the scale in 2024, up from 3.2 in 2010 and slightly below the 3.76 in the previous year's report. Counties further along charge to stay connected. Hill County says it bills $15 per radio each month on its Harris P25 network and kept its old VHF channels supported through Nov. 28, 2025.

Grayson County's May 2026 year-to-date report shows the Fire Marshal's capital budget of $80,000 nearly spent, at $77,812.18, while the $17,000 in dispatch capital had not been touched.