Buckingham County has received more than $84,000 in federal funds to enhance emergency radio communications among first responders, volunteer firefighters, rescue squad members and police.

A majority of the funds — $46,518 — will be used for what is known as the Bremo Site to improve communication in the Arvonia area of Buckingham, according to Jamie Shumaker, the county’s IT manager.

“There is a new tower in the area that was not constructed at the time of the most recent radio upgrades,” Shumaker said.

He said the county has secured permission for the tower’s owner to install the necessary equipment.

“These funds will help with procurement and installation of the required equipment,” Shumaker said.

The remainder of the funds — $38,139 — will enhance overall communication, he said.

“The funds … will be used to replace the equipment that is responsible for the transmission of audio between the tower(s), dispatch center and emergency responders, to reduce and prevent audio distortion,” Shumaker said.

The funds were part of an announcement from Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who said $5.7 million in federal funds were awarded to 99 projects to enhance emergency preparedness and security throughout the state.

Shumaker said the county has “continuously strived to improve emergency communications.”

Because of a new communications system installed in 2014, first responders can communicate with each other and the Buckingham County Emergency Communications Center in more than 90 percent of the county.

Previously, the county used what Shumaker described as a “voted” system, having only “one transmit site. The other two sites that we have listen only.”

With the new technology, the county now has three separate simulcast sites at Glenmore, Willis Mountain and Spears Mountain, all of which can both receive and transmit, according to Shumaker.

During a previous interview, Shumaker said the added technology has resulted in dispatchers being able to patch in other counties fire and rescue channels into Buckingham’s so they can communicate without switching channels.

“We’ve got Cumberland Fire, Cumberland Rescue, Cumberland Sheriff, Prince Edward Fire, Appomattox Fire, Nelson Fire … and the school system,” Shumaker said. “We have the capability of communicating with all of them from dispatch. We also have the capability of patching our radio system to your channel. So, if you wanted, let’s say Cumberland County came over to help, we could patch Cumberland County into the fire and rescue here,” Shumaker explained, adding that mutual aid agreements were used to facilitate the change.