Our Town Manager and the three department heads of our emergency services departments -- fire, police, and public works -- make a very persuasive case for the need to address our emergency communications infrastructure. At last week’s public forum, they each recounted specific incidents where their people or town residents were in significant danger in areas where existing emergency communications cannot reach today.
One Chapel Hill Road resident echoed these concerns, referring to an incident where emergency medical response was dangerously delayed due to limited emergency communications coverage.
Due to difficult topography and the radio “shadows” cast by the ridges fanning out from downtown, our existing emergency communications coverage cannot reliably reach many houses along the valleys throughout town, most notably Beaver Meadow/Bragg Hill/West Norwich and the Goodrich Four Corners/Route 132 area in northeast Norwich.
FCC-mandated “narrow-banding" -- first announced several years ago -- takes effect at year-end, throttling down existing bandwidth for emergency services and, if not addressed, resulting in significantly worse coverage than exists today.
Based on the coverage maps provided at the public forum, a proposed 198’ tower above the Town Garage -- together with complementary coverage from towers in neighboring towns -- would substantially improve emergency services communications above existing coverage levels even after the narrow-banding rules come into effect at year-end.
However, due to tower site and height characteristics, two areas would remain in the shadows without some or any emergency services communications coverage.
The biggest shadow falls over old West Norwich comprised of Chapel Hill Road, Mitchell Brook Road, Tigertown Road, Podunk Road, and some parts of outer Beaver Meadow Road including adjacent sections of Tucker Hill and Bragg Hill Roads.
A smaller shadow appears over Ladeau and Kerwin Hill Roads near Thetford.
Given the need to borrow money through bonds to build this tower anyway, doesn’t it make sense to thoroughly research the possibility of finding a single site -- whether publicly- or privately-owned -- that might extend coverage to these two remaining shadows?
As it now stands, our coverage objective is actually whatever we can achieve from a site that is currently town-owned with a tower that is just short enough to avoid a flashing red light on top. Cold comfort to those in its shadows.
In other words, given its public safety purpose, shouldn’t our coverage objective for this tower be to eliminate all existing shadows and cover 100% of the public within our borders if at all possible?
One Chapel Hill Road resident echoed these concerns, referring to an incident where emergency medical response was dangerously delayed due to limited emergency communications coverage.
Due to difficult topography and the radio “shadows” cast by the ridges fanning out from downtown, our existing emergency communications coverage cannot reliably reach many houses along the valleys throughout town, most notably Beaver Meadow/Bragg Hill/West Norwich and the Goodrich Four Corners/Route 132 area in northeast Norwich.
FCC-mandated “narrow-banding" -- first announced several years ago -- takes effect at year-end, throttling down existing bandwidth for emergency services and, if not addressed, resulting in significantly worse coverage than exists today.
Based on the coverage maps provided at the public forum, a proposed 198’ tower above the Town Garage -- together with complementary coverage from towers in neighboring towns -- would substantially improve emergency services communications above existing coverage levels even after the narrow-banding rules come into effect at year-end.
However, due to tower site and height characteristics, two areas would remain in the shadows without some or any emergency services communications coverage.
The biggest shadow falls over old West Norwich comprised of Chapel Hill Road, Mitchell Brook Road, Tigertown Road, Podunk Road, and some parts of outer Beaver Meadow Road including adjacent sections of Tucker Hill and Bragg Hill Roads.
A smaller shadow appears over Ladeau and Kerwin Hill Roads near Thetford.
Given the need to borrow money through bonds to build this tower anyway, doesn’t it make sense to thoroughly research the possibility of finding a single site -- whether publicly- or privately-owned -- that might extend coverage to these two remaining shadows?
As it now stands, our coverage objective is actually whatever we can achieve from a site that is currently town-owned with a tower that is just short enough to avoid a flashing red light on top. Cold comfort to those in its shadows.
In other words, given its public safety purpose, shouldn’t our coverage objective for this tower be to eliminate all existing shadows and cover 100% of the public within our borders if at all possible?
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