Board of Education members on Monday night voiced support for a proposal from the New Canaan Police Department to install an approximately 10-foot radio communications antenna on a 5-foot “monopole” atop the roof of the West School gymnasium.
Assured that the pole poses no health hazards—in fact, there are two existing, similar set-ups already at West School, used by the bus company and district itself, according to Police Capt. John DiFederico—Board of Ed members stopped short of a formal vote. The new one would serve public safety needs, he said.
School board member Sheri West said: “It seems very straightforward to me that we would be supporting” the installation.
DiFederico described the proposed antenna as an initial step toward improving portable radio communications for police, fire and public works officials as well as EMTs and members of the Community Emergency Response Team or ‘CERT.’
“The problem is that portable radios in the western side of town have a real difficult time reaching our base so that is what a receive-only antenna does—it captures the radio signals in the air and sends them back to the police department or the fire house or the public works facilities,” DiFederico said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School.
“So it captures the existing radio transmissions out in the field and sends them back. Nothing is emitted from this antenna. It’s not going to be used as a broadcast antenna … [the] northwestern side of town, that is really our critical area, that is where we have such a hard time, mostly when we get out of our vehicles, start talking on our portable radios and we go inside a building. Ones like West School or Country Day School—once we get deep inside those buildings, pretty much we are cut off. We can’t communicate out to headquarters or to other patrol cars and let tem know about a situation that is going on. That is critical to us. Same with fire, same with the ambulance corps and public works.”
DiFederico noted that in the spring, Stamford residents citing aesthetic concerns pushed back on a more comprehensive proposal to bolster emergency communications in northwestern New Canaan with a tower. It’s a time-sensitive, pressing need as the major hub of antennas that serve emergency responders, on the Waveny water towers, likely will need to come down, as per property owner Aquarion.
The captain said New Canaan officials “have not been able to identify another location” in the northwestern part of town since Stamford pushed back on the Reservoir Lane proposal.
“Because any time you work with an antenna, height is the critical factor,” he said. “And to put an antenna on an 85-foot tower, with a 20-foot antenna, would be ideal. You just can’t find a location to do that. So the second best thing for us to do is to find existing locations, existing structures on this side of town and put a smaller antenna up. West School being a town-owned property and with a very high peak on the gymnasium, was one of the locations that we identified that could help us out.”
The proposed antenna requires some equipment on the ground, similar to a computer server rack, that would fit into a small closet, “so we would work with the school on the best place” to house it, DiFederico said.
Board of Ed members asked for confirmation that none of the antennas, existing or proposed, pose health concerns (correct), whether the ‘receive-only’ antenna means it also feeds into a separate system (yes through a phone line or network), how much of the northwestern side of New Canaan would get radio coverage with the proposed antenna (it would improve coverage but an area further north still is needed), whether the antenna especially would help emergency responders when they’re away from their vehicles (yes) and whether the water tower out back of West School would work (that would require far more infrastructure to be installed, such as a generator).
Dionna Carlson, chair of the Board of Ed, asked how the servicing of equipment is handled—for example, at St. Luke’s—and if there are issues during the day when school is in session, how servicing needs are addressed.
DiFederico responded that those types of needs are infrequent, are handled by a fully vetted company, and that officials would work with the schools as they do with private facilities to “get in when we can.”
Carlson said: “As a board member, our preference would be to do it outside of school hours, if possible.”
Satellite Phones — simple solution are the best !!! A satellite
phone cost $45 a week to rent or buy for $$748 – $1,500
AT+T is coming out with a cell phone that if it can not get
a signal will become a Satellite Phone — The police, fire and EMS
tells the town we need a fix — they could have these phones in a week — is it just me? — why do we try to do the hard thing instead of the easy thing??
Cell phones are typically one-to-one communication. One employee calls another employee, for example. On the other hand, Emergency Radio Communcations are typically one-to-many. For example, an officer would communicate to all the other officers on his radio frequency, and with dispatch, at the same time.
Rich
That’s a good suggestion that should be discussed and researched further with the Utilities Commission and Police, Fire, EMS. Maybe order 2 “satellite phones” as a “test” to see if these phones actually work throughout New Canaan. It would be interesting if the carriers offer a “trial” period as opposed to a one or two-year contract.