Job Description

About UMRDD

The Umatilla Morrow Radio & Data District is an Oregon Special District spanning across more than 5,000 square miles of scenic northeastern Oregon, serving approximately 90,000 citizens who reside within its shared boundaries of Umatilla and Morrow counties, and the Umatilla Indian Reservation. UMRDD manages a modern, trunked Project-25 digital public safety communications system to support over forty local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement, fire and EMS agencies and departments that operate within the District\'s footprint, as well as several hospitals, school districts, a rural power cooperative, and Union Pacific Railroad law enforcement.

Summary

UMRDD is seeking a Technician / Engineer to fill one immediately available position of Radio Systems Communications Technician I or II. General tasks are to assist in the maintenance and repair of a publicly-owned, trunked two-way land mobile radio (LMR) system, its associated microwave backhaul network, consoles at three emergency dispatch centers, and the fleet of subscriber (user) mobile and portable radios that operate on the system. More experienced "Level II" candidates with the appropriate skills could expect to occasionally assist in network design, perform RF propagation studies, and engineer various solutions to improve system performance and reliability.

The following are the requirements for all candidates:

• Must have authorization to work in the US.

• Must have valid driver\'s license.

• Must be willing and able to pass comprehensive background checks (including criminal history and motor vehicle checks), and pre-employment drug screening as part of hiring process. This position is considered security-sensitive.

• Must be able to obtain a Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Level 4 Security Awareness certification within 30 days of hiring as a condition of continued employment.

• Must represent the District to user agencies and the public professionally, courteously, and with respect.

• Must be team-focused with a passion to meet user-agency requirements and District goals.

• Will be required to travel on a regular basis within the two-county area of the District in a work-provided vehicle.

• Traveling to areas outside of the District is expected to occur infrequently.

• Must have proficiency with MS Office Suite, such as Microsoft Word and Excel.

• Work is performed in both an indoor office environment and outdoor environment where staff may be exposed to various outside weather conditions.

• Must be willing and able to work safely and independently at both populated and remote, isolated locations.

• Work may need to occur after-hours and on an on-call basis. This will be required when system-interrupting maintenance and failures fall outside of normal business hours, with excess work time expected to be flexed when possible. Must be willing to receive and attend to emails, text messages, and/or other alerting applications on District-provided phone during non-work hours to be notified of such instances.

UMRDD understands that this position may be of interest to candidates of varying backgrounds, experience, and skillsets; therefore, UMRDD has developed two \'levels\' for this position. Their duties/responsibilities and requirements are further described below.

Technician Level I

Duties/Responsibilities:

• Install, maintain and provide technical support and service of LMR communications systems including those that use 700/800MHz analog and P25 equipment to include mobile and portable radios, base stations, antenna systems, dispatch consoles, and system controllers.

• Perform same tasks to digital microwave systems including microwave radios, microwave multiplex, dishes, and transmission lines.

• Diagnose, troubleshoot, repair, and resolve wireless communication problems with equipment as mentioned above.

• Repair radio and microwave equipment by replacing defective modules or components through standard troubleshooting procedures and practices. Analyze and comprehend diagnostic test results in order to repair and program radios and wireless equipment.

• Provide hands-on and oversight of installation and configuration of communications equipment and peripheral hardware such as base stations, repeaters, mobile devices, portable devices, and dispatch consoles.

• Perform routine, preventive and unscheduled maintenance, inspection, adjustments, testing, cleaning and proper maintenance on radio and microwave equipment in accordance with, schematics, operations manuals and manufacturers maintenance instructions.

• Build radio programming files (\xe2\x80\x9ccode plugs\xe2\x80\x9d) for user-agency radios and program them into user radios.

• Identify technical issues with radio communications experienced by users throughout the customer locations. Take corrective action to characterize issue, relay nature of issue to District Administrator and vendor(s), and coordinate work with all involved to resolution.

• Assist and instruct users on proper radio operation.

Required and Preferred Skills/Background

• Have two to four years of Radio Service Technician experience in diagnosing, repairing, programming, and installing two-way radio wireless equipment and microwave systems.

• Proficiency in operating various test equipment including but not limited to, spectrum analyzers, system analyzers, watt meters, TDRs, FDRs, and multi-meters.

• Possess a basic working knowledge of local and wide area networking, subnets, and TCP/IP.

• Ability to interpret schematics, blueprints, and diagrams.

• Preference will be placed on candidates with experience with Tait and/or Nokia equipment.

Required and Preferred Education/Certifications

• Possess an associate degree in Electronics Technology or equivalent.

• Preference will be placed on candidates with credential as R56 Certified Installer and/or completion of training on Tait and/or Nokia equipment.

• Preference will be placed on candidates that have a valid FCC General Radio Operator\'s License or equivalent.

Technician Level II

Unless otherwise noted, the following duties/responsibilities and required/preferred skills, backgrounds, education, and certifications are in addition to those of Technician Level I as described above.

Duties/Responsibilities:

• Identify and implement modifications and enhancements to improve the effectiveness of the District\'s communications systems.

• Periodically download communication equipment\'s/system\'s log files.

• Analyze log files to troubleshoot any problem or to provide predictive maintenance for the communication system.

• Identify early failure trends that may impact fleet availability and take corrective action to mitigate.

• Oversee performance of vendors including those providing radio, microwave, or radio-site equipment and services. Ensure their work meets contractual obligations, industry best practices, and the best interests of the District.

• Develop and deploy radio reprogramming plans to install new radio code plugs into a large number of user radios via either over-the-air or direct programming methods. Track progress of reprogramming efforts and see to completion of all required radios.

• Assume Supervisor\'s responsibilities when the supervisor is unavailable.

• Develop written policies for the operation and maintenance of radio and microwave equipment and radio sites.

• Develop, manage, and maintain inventories of equipment including fixed-location components and end user radio. Keep inventories up-to-date on real-time basis.

Required and Preferred Skills/Background

• Have five to seven (or more) years (total, not in addition to the experience of Level I) of Radio Service Technician experience in diagnosing, repairing, programming, and installing two-way LMR equipment and microwave systems.

• Possess an in-depth knowledge of local and wide area networking, subnets, and TCP/IP, including ability to create and implement addressing schemes.

• Have knowledge of or experience with of industry standards for radio sites and towers (e.g., TIA-222, R-56, and others) to the level needed to identify problems and work with specialists on their resolution.

• Proficiency in operating various network management systems / programs.

• Preference will be placed on candidates with ability to post-process log files via scripting or other analytical tools.

Required and Preferred Education/Certifications

• Preference will be placed on candidates with IT Certifications such as CompTIA A+, CCT, CompTIA Network+, or equivalent.

Annual Salary Range (based on full-time 40 hours per week plus on-call)

For Level I: $65,000 - $87,500 ($5,416 - $7,291 monthly)

For Level II: $82,500 - $105,000 ($6,875 - $8,750 monthly)

Application Submission Guidelines

A fillable application is available at and should be submitted either via email to or delivered to:

Umatilla Morrow Radio & Data District

4700 NW Pioneer Place

Pendleton, OR 97801

When applying for a position, candidates shall clearly indicate if they believe that their background, experience, and skill set meets the requirements/preferences of Level I or Level II. Candidates are strongly encouraged to include a cover letter and resume with their application. Applications may or may not be kept on file for future positions.

Application tips for the PDF form:

• When entering a date that is more than a few months in the past (such as for work experience), it will be much easier to simply enter the numbers using the MM/DD/YYYY format, rather than using the dialog box to step back one month at a time.

• Wait to digitally sign the application until all fields are completed, including the signature date. Note that there is an additional page to sign for Veterans\' Preference.

• Upon clicking \xe2\x80\x9cSubmit\xe2\x80\x9d in the application, a copy of your completed form will be attached to an email, ready for the applicant to send. If applicant intends to include a cover letter and/or resume, it would be advisable to attach those documents at the same time, prior to sending the email.

• Since email delivery problems are always a possibility, if no confirmation of application receipt from District staff is received within three working days, it\'s recommended to follow up via the contact form on UMRDD\'s web site at

EEO Policy

UMRDD is an equal opportunity employer. Personnel policies shall be applied without regard to any individual\'s sex, gender, race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, political affiliation, sexual orientation, veteran status, any disability which can be accommodated reasonably, or any other status protected by law.

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