SCHENECTADY — The city’s antique neighborhood watch radios are being replaced.

They had become so unreliable that most of the city’s new watch members have never even seen one. They’ve always used their cell phones to report crimes.

That hasn’t always gone smoothly. If they dial in, they get a dispatcher who has no idea that an official crime-stopper is calling.

“It may be a tense situation, they may be excited and speaking quickly. They get a dispatcher who may not understand. There’s confusion,” said Toni Pallotolo, Bellevue Neighborhood Association president and watch member. “It results in a delay in service.”

On Monday, the Schenectady City Council accepted a $9,500 state grant to buy new radios, as well as something else that watch members have recently been lobbying for — official vests to wear on their walking patrols.

Such patrols have surged in popularity in the past two years as watch participation has grown significantly. New members say they’re not content to simply call police if they see something suspicious from their porch. They want to go out in search of the criminals and chase them away.

At first, the patrols made police uneasy. They stressed that watch members are supposed to simply observe and report, not take the place of armed and trained police officers.

But Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett, who supported the idea of vests to identify the watch members, said the patrollers haven’t overstepped their bounds.

“They’ve been given instructions as to their limits,” he said.

He rather likes the idea of uniformed residents patrolling their neighborhood, he added.

“People will see them and realize it’s a very active group,” he said. “It gives us additional eyes and ears. It also gives the public another resource they can talk to. Maybe they may be a little timid talking to the police, maybe they’ll talk to them.”

The influx of cash won’t allow the city to do much more than replace its current set of radios. About 10 will be purchased, replacing eight radios that only worked intermittently.

“They were in very bad shape,” Bennett said.

The new radios will be able to use the police department’s analog signal but can also use digital — an expensive upgrade but one that makes sense for the future, Bennett added.

“All the new wave is digital equipment,” he said.

The city will also use part of the state grant to upgrade the dispatchers’ communications system, making it compatible with the new radios.

Pallotolo said she can’t wait to try out the new equipment.

“This is wonderful news,” she said. “There were so few and they were so bad that we’ve never actually been able to use one.”