Fire departments countywide will be switching to a new paging system the morning of April 3. The pagers are used to alert on-call firefighters to emergencies. Because the current system was nearing the end of its life, the county began researching technology upgrades last year and decided to switch from the current VHF paging system to an 800 megahertz fire paging system. While most fire departments are eager to switch over the upgraded technology, some smaller fire departments in St. Clair County expressed concerns about cost.