When the Lebanon County radio project was first designed it included computer models (computerized models) that recommended locations for antennas and proposed coverage. While these models are accurate to some degree they do not depict life in the real world. The only way to know for sure is to roll out radio users and find out.
The rollout of our radio system has been slow and methodical. It started by using the Lebanon City Police since they already had a functioning radio system as a backup and were only going to be operating from our southern system. This made trouble shooting and reliability easier. This rollout was considered a success and the only real problems that developed were issues with their new dispatch console and training.
The next step was with the County Police units. The goal was to expand our geographic footprint and test both the north and the south radio systems. This resulted in the discovery of some hardware problems that caused dropped calls (which have since been resolved) and the identification of some coverage issues. It was readily apparent that in the southern end of the county (Spring Hill acres and south) coverage was not acceptable. Last fall a new tower site was added to our system on South Mountain. This site provides additional coverage needed as well as later interoperability into Lancaster County. This site is currently operational and after we get the radios in the field reprogrammed to recognize this site will provide significant increases in coverage, hopefully into South Londonderry Twp.. A new paging base was also added to our system to add additional paging reliability.
Another area of concern that developed was the Annville area. Annville sits geographically lower than a lot of the county and as such it is difficult to provide reliable paging and radio coverage (especially in-door coverage). Police units in this area have depended on their own repeater system located at the Annville Cleona High School for several years to provide increased communications. This problem has been identified and currently we are committed to adding another tower site to our system. After considering several locations, the Lebanon Valley College proved to be an ideal spot. We have been in negotiation with the college for several weeks and they have been very supportive of a radio site on their property. We are currently waiting for microwave studies to come back so that we can choose the most suitable site. Microwave radio is used to connect different tower sites and radio equipment but microwaves must have a line of site shot between them, therefore the placement of the microwave dish is extremely important. The college also has some climate controlled space and back up generator power. We are currently investigating these possibilities and if the college has the capacity to host our needs or if we must consider our own space and generator. I expect these decisions to be made within the next few weeks.
A third location of concern within the county was in the eastern part, notably in the Millcreek Twp. area. Police units in this area have depended on their own in-vehicle repeaters for communications as the old low band system was not reliable in this part of the county. After months of looking for solutions to this problem it was determined that the county would need another “stand alone” site on our system. We recently located an excellent site to provide the needed coverage. The site is owned by COMCAST and we are currently negotiating with them to use this site for an additional radio and paging site. This site will significantly increase radio communications where we need it and add an additional paging base for increased reliability. COMCAST has been a very good neighbor to Lebanon County and is working closely with us to provide the support necessary in a timely manner.
I will provide updates on these sites as we go on with the project.
It has been asked about the costs of additional sites on our system. In the original design proposal, computer models were used to generate coverage maps for the county. While these coverage maps are generally accurate, they are not perfect. The coverage map for Annville did show some areas of concern mostly on the western end. The coverage map for Spring Hill Acres also showed areas of concern. Until you go to real world testing the extent of these coverage issues is not known. If one of these areas turns out to be in a wooded area with no property or in the middle of a field, perhaps we would not want to spend additional tax payer money on these coverage issues (just in case we need it). That however has not been the case. The areas listed above involve a significant population and a significant part of our emergency services. They must be and are being addressed. While M/A-COM has donated a significant amount of money to these additional sites there will be a cost to the tax payer. Unfortunately the end costs of these improvements are not known at the current time.
Daniel Kauffman
Director
Lebanon County Emergency Management