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BLUE EARTH - Months of planning culminated Wednesday in the last move from the old Faribault County jail to the new facility.

The sheriff's office, Blue Earth Valley Communi-cation, Independent Emergency Services, Accurate Controls, Alpha Wireless and the Martin County Sheriff's Office played the largest roles in moving dispatching services.

The first of the three-phase dispatch switch began shortly after 10 a.m. as IES cut off 911 calls to Faribault County and rerouted service to Martin County.

Faribault County had a dispatcher in Fairmont to help contact first responders back home.

Additionally, Blue Earth Fire Chief and Deputy Terry Campbell was at the Blue Earth Fire Hall, ready to page fire or ambulance.

Another dispatcher was at the old jail handling police officer radio traffic, making sure that end of the move went smoothly.

IES, which has its main office in Hutchinson, serves about 80 of Minnesota's counties when it comes to 911 service. Its main task was to make sure 911 calls were not dropped, while ensuring the new system was ready to accept emergency calls.

Meanwhile, Bevcomm worked on the computers that handle the emergency service communication radios. It also had employees going from one radio site to another - near Delavan, Easton and Blue Earth.

Chief Deputy Scott Adams said the radio communicators flow into a computer, which communicates with a radio console.

"We actually keep a spare hard drive already programmed in case (the computer) goes down," he said. "We can switch it out. We will never lose radio connection - at least not for very long."

Around 10:30 a.m., 911 test calls were made and 20 minutes later service was brought back from Fairmont.

Sheriff Mike Gormley said the old radio system really has no resale value since it is a first-generation system. The new system is second-generation, meeting federal requirements.

After phase one of the dispatch/jail move, phase two - switching all secondary radio channels - began. Alpha Wireless tested all the connections. Phase two took a lot longer, carrying on past 2 p.m.

"(It's going) very well considering that there are 13 separate radio channels and three console positions," said technician Lance Vath of Alpha Wireless. "We have to correlate with the phone company. ... There was a lot of pre-planning that helped make it go smooth."

Jason Engel, a field tech with Alpha, worked to get the paging bases up for each department so calls go out on the right channel.

"We just make sure we go through and verify every channel and make sure everything works," he said.

Once that was done, dispatchers began paging all county fire departments and ambulances, seeking phone confirmation that the test worked. All reported it did.

The biggest hangup in phase two was hooking up the state computer system through which dispatchers can check for warrants, driver history and vehicle information. Eventually, the problem was resolved.

Phase three was much simpler: Finalizing the switchover for the other two dispatch stations.

Dispatcher Todd Hanevik felt the move went well.

"Because everybody that's been involved knew exactly what they were doing," he said.

By 4 p.m., the switchover was nearly complete, with another radio console being moved from the old jail to the new one.

All the other dispatch-related documentation was moved earlier Wednesday morning, so not much is left - just people.

Tuesday night, staff undertook a shakedown of the jail pods.

"To make sure nobody left a screwdriver behind," Gormley said. "We'll do it once more when everybody leaves."

After the technicians left Wednesday, the inmates were at last moved from the old cells near the courthouse to the pods at the new facility.

With that, the law enforcement center is officially moved.