State working to solve county communications problems

Moose Mountain repeater causing headaches for
emergency services

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    GREENVILLE — When the Moose Mountain emergency radio repeater system went online last year, it was considered a huge improvement over the old unit at the Greenville Municipal Airport.
    The tower was much higher and the signals from the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department, Greenville Fire Department, C.A. Dean Ambulance and other emergency services could travel much better to isolated areas of the county.

Photo courtesy of Greenville
Police Chief Jeff Pomerleau
MOOSE MOUNTAIN REPEATER

    But in December, problems cropped up, said Greenville Town Manager John Simko, who is also a firefighter and EMT. “I had trouble hearing (Piscataquis County) dispatch and they had problems hearing me on some calls,” Simko told the Observer. At one point, he started relaying information via cell phone instead of radio.
    The repeater for the local frequencies is in a secure compound shared with another system that retransmits radio traffic for the Maine Warden Service, Maine Forestry Service and state police. The complex is owned and maintained by the Maine Office of Information Technology.
    Telford Allen III took Greenville Police Chief Jeff Pomerleau up to the repeater site in a helicopter in mid-February and Pomerleau said that it appeared that part of the antenna on the county repeater was missing. “Something obviously came down and took out two large sections of fence from the inside out,” Pomerleau wrote in an email to Simko.
    As the problem with retransmission continued, the old unit at the airport was restarted and the county’s emergency service radios were reprogrammed with an additional channel.
    Unfortunately, the solution sparked another problem, Simko said. The Moose Mountain repeater “works intermittently but can’t be turned off.” So the radio transmissions often activate both the airport and mountain repeaters, thus causing feedback and garbled traffic. “Our own radio traffic is working against itself,” Simko explained.
    Whitten’s Communications recently upgraded the sheriff’s office repeater in Dover-Foxcroft from 50 to 100 watts which has partially alleviated the problem. But Simko described the airport repeater system as “old and tired and prone to failure when we deactivated it.”
    Dave Roberts, the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department communications director, said that the higher wattage radio has helped, but he still has concerns about the overall system. “Using the airport repeater is only a temporary solution,” Robert said. “One reason they put the new towers up on the mountain was because of the county’s terrain features.”
    Roberts said that he’s heard that OIT “has had other issues with their sites across the state, including some weather-related problems.”
    OIT Chief Technology Officer Greg McNeal confirmed that the agency has experienced ice damage at a number of sites, but the state repeater system at Moose Mountain is working fine. “I’ve got an email from a game warden where he says that reception is the best he’s ever had,” McNeal said. “So we’re taking steps to look into the county issue.”
    McNeal said that he’s sending OIT’s “top technician to work with Whitten’s to get this problem solved. We’re very aware of the county’s concerns.”
    The “co-location agreement” of the Moose Mountain site is a unique one, he said. “The county and Greenville received a grant for the purchase of the equipment and we installed it for them at no cost. But they are responsible for the maintenance.”
    O’Neal concurred that when a radio triggers both repeaters, even though they’re on different frequencies, “You do get a heterodyne effect and that will affect audio quality. But the overall problem is solvable.”
    If the problems aren’t alleviated, Simko said there’s an alternative: relocating the repeater equipment to a lot on Scammon Ridge, owned by Varney Insurance and Premium Choice Broadband. “Bill (Varney) is supportive of this and has given his permission for the town to have Whitten’s send technicians to the site and evaluate it for use as an alternate site to Big Moose Mountain,” Simko said.
    One major advantage is that the Scammon Ridge site would be accessible by vehicle and a stand-alone operation, rather than one shared by a state agency.
    The elevation of the site is estimated at 2,200 feet above sea level, or roughly halfway between the airport and Moose Mountain, Simko said.
    The next step, however, depends on the outcome of the onsite visit by Whitten’s and OIT technicians. “When it comes to public safety, we can’t take chances,” Simko said.