HONOLULU -- The Honolulu Police Department's new digital radio system ran into problems Wednesday night.

The police officers on patrol were unable to hear dispatchers talking to them.

The Police Department's new digital radio system ran into problems about 7:00 p.m.

HPD said a build up of data in the department's communication system interfered with the radio system.

"Data's accumulating. It's not being purged, so it clogs up the voice channel," Acting Assistant Chief Godsey said.

As a result police officers could not hear the dispatchers talking to them.

"They were only able to communicate with each other. They couldn't hear dispatch, but dispatch could hear them," Godsey said.

HPD decided to switch back to the old analog system.

They rebooted and three hours later, about 11p.m., they were back on the digital system.

Wednesday night's problems were the latest development in a long history of problems HPD has had with its radio system.

However, Godsey said the system is working well. He said the vendor is still trying to figure out why the system failed Wednesday night.

Police said they have had no reports that any emergency calls went unanswered during the outage.