2007TCCMT0821

Town of Rensselaerville

Telecommunications Committee

August 21, 2007

Attendees: Scott Wank, Member

Fred Urrutia, Member

Perry Moak, Rensselaerville VFD

Robert Tanner, Rensselaerville VFD

Brian Wood, ACSD, Tri-Valley VFD, Rensselaerville Vol Ambulance

Matt Campbell, Albany County Sheriff’s Dept. Communications Center

Discussion:

Main purpose of this meeting was to discuss public safety radio communications issues and problems in the Town of Rensselaerville
Feedback from local fire departments

We briefly discussed the observations from the July 10 meeting with local VFD personnel
There was another recent incident in which a young woman was seriously injured on an ATV off Gulf Road west of CR 10 and EMS/WFD personnel had difficulties with communications in responding
In this case there were extremely serious physical injuries and the patient had to be airlifted by helicopter and the first responders had difficulties communicating

Discussion with Matt Campbell, Albany County Sheriff’s Dept. Communications Center

These sites are typically leased from land owner at rates of approximately $1,800 to $4,000 per year
Just installed a new 50’ pole (like a utility pole) with 16’ “stick”’ antenna in Coeymans with receiver for improving return communication from field

New system will register the callers location via GPS and route the wireless 911 call directly to the appropriate geographical public safety answering point, speeding the answering time and response by emergency service agencies

Lee Palmer, consultant to Albany County for communications, unable to be here today, knows all the details about the prior efforts in Rensselaerville to improve comms via new tower at Kropp’s Hill

Matt reported that the Kropp’s Hill was by far the most viable solution to poor communications in Rensselaerville

Plan was to erect 180 ft tower to reach any where in Rensselaerville with 5W portable radios
Tom Diederich was to erect tower, pay landowner to lease site, and lease to Albany Co and commercial users
Plan was to use that tower for all public safety comms, including new 911 call center GPS-enabled reception and also have convenience of cellular carriage
That tower would have also improved VFD/EMS pagers reception
Willing to consider a whorter tower at the same site (maybe 145-150 feet rather than 180 feet)
Matt urged RTC to follow-up with Tom Diederich for more info about that proposal
Matt also suggested we talk to Greene County and Schoharie County if they are interested in using the Kropp Hill site for additional communications

NY Governor’s office is providing some funding to benefit “shared municipal resources” which benefit multiple municipalities
(Note to Cathleen: We should ask Sharon Lansing to look into this?)

We discussed RTC idea to install multiple repeaters to reach areas where radios do not work

We cannot use microwave relay from remote sites due to terrain
Biggest hurdle is RTNA (hi-speed telecom return links), cost rated per mile of carriage, will average $500/month each site (approximately same distance as new Coeymen’s site to Comms Ctr)

We will need to do propagation survey, determine site locations, then demonstrate we can meet FCC requirements for each, will be more costly to clear these requirements with multiple sites
Hardware cost per repeater site can be $8,000 to $12,000

On August 30, Fred Urrutia had a follow-up telephone meeting with Matt Campbell to ask about simple two-way transceiver RF repeaters without return line to Comms Ctr)

Matt advised repeaters will only be a partial solution, even such 2-way repeaters on ridge tops south of Rt 359 & 360
He again re-stated the site on Kropp’s Hill is the only viable, long-term solution to reaching the southern portions of Rensselaerville where reception is poor to non-existent
Not confident coverage will be complete under SWN, need to wait to see how that ends up
Again urged us to speak to Tom Diederich about the work done to ascertain Kropp’s Hill viability for better solution