Successful end is near for Radio Tower Project

Northumberland County Administration Building.

By Cecilia Nasmith, Northumberland 89.7 FM News

Northumberland County

Little remains to be done to complete the county's Radio Tower Project

Northumberland's Radio Tower Project is nearing successful completion, Northumberland County council's Public Works Committee heard Monday.

The report from Associate Director of Engineering Carol Coleman outlined how the new system functions as a replacement for the old county phone tower, which risked the possibility of a single-point failure.

“Now all the fire departments have a county-side paging system over eight different towers,” Coleman said, improving communications and efficiency.

Road department radios have also been switched from analog to digital for better quality and better coverage, she added.

“After this weekend and probably the next few days ahead, there may be more information coming from this system as to its positive components and any hiccups it may have experienced in the last 72 hours,” committee chair Scott Jibb said, referring to the ice storms that had ravaged the county.

“I am looking forward to a future meeting with information on the agreements we have in relationship to the generators – maintenance, monitoring, annual reviews – and I simply bring that forward to have it officially in this meeting as a request for the next upcoming committee meeting.”

There is now a tower in each of Northumberland's seven municipalities, as well as Alderville First Nation, each tower owned by a different party and each generator owned by a different party (except in Trent Hills, where there is no generator as yet, and operations rely on battery power).

The report sets out a list of tasks – propane contracts for generators, property maintenance including winter maintenance – and the party responsible for each task.

The project has involved licensing and access agreements with the owners of each of the eight towers, installation of equipment at all eight towers, commissioning and testing of equipment, programming of public works and fire department radios, and their switching over.

The old Northumberland County tower will be removed when snow in the forest has melted enough to allow safer access to the site. Once this existing tower is decommissioned, the Radio Tower Project will be closed out.