The tower on top of Cape Meares that hosts transmitters for the county’s emergency radio system, as well as a plethora of other broadcast, cellular and amateur and professional radio equipment. In addition to sometimes competing for frequencies, the large number of loose cables left by past users cause literal noise on radios as they move in the wind.
Will Chappell
Tillamook County is asking voters to approve a $24.4-million bond to support a major upgrade to the county’s emergency radio system on the November ballot.
Communications systems administrator Ruben Descloux recently took the Headlight Herald on a tour of two of the system’s towers and discussed the current system’s limitations and the benefits of a new system.
Built between 2001 and 2003, the current system relies on 12 tower sites across the county that house VHF repeaters to coordinate communications among first responders.
The analog system relies on relays to pass messages between distant areas of the county, while a new digital system would be able to facilitate countywide communications directly. The current system also only allows one person to talk at a time, whereas the digital system would support talk groups for various agencies, each of which would be able to carry on conversations independently and simultaneously.
A large challenge facing the current system is the relative weakness of its signal compared to those transmitted by other organizations with newer equipment, causing interference and sometimes completely blocking the county’s signal. Using the same technology that allows for different talk groups, the new system would also be able to select the frequencies least impacted by other transmissions and assign the county’s communications to those.
Descloux said that in addition to cutting down on the noise caused by competing signals, the digital system would also be less impacted by literal noise caused by loose wires and wind at the towers than the analog system.
The view from the tower on top of Cape Meares to the south.
Will Chappell
The proposed system upgrade also includes plans to add a secondary network of weak repeaters that buttress the towers to the system’s microwave network, which would further increase signal strength across the county.
A report commissioned by the county and released in 2020 recommended the county’s analog system be upgraded to digital. The report noted that in addition to upgrading the system’s functionality, a lack of replacement parts for the old system would increasingly hamper the county’s ability to keep it operational.
The report also estimated that the project would carry a budget of $20 million, though in the intervening years inflation has pushed that figure to $26 million. The county has received a $2 million federal appropriation to support the project and is now asking voters to approve a bond to support the rest of the budget.
That question will be on November’s ballot, with voters deciding whether to approve a 33-cent increase per $1,000 in assessed value to property taxes over the next 16 years. If approved, that would support the construction of a new tower site, equipment upgrades at the existing sites and the purchase of more than 1,000 portable and mobile radios, pagers and control stations for first responder agencies across the county.
Tillamook County Commissioner Doug Olson said that it would take two years to install the new system and that it would come with a three-year warranty, after which the county would be responsible for maintenance. First responders including law enforcement officers, firefighters and paramedics would have free access to the system, while other groups would have the option to purchase access.
Olson is also a member of a political action committee that has been formed to promote the project and will be traveling the county over the next months to spread information and awareness of the bond measure.
Olson likes to compare the current radio system to pieces of personal technology that everybody has, like cell phones, to hammer home the point that the county’s reliance on the current system is untenable and would be akin to an individual still watching a tube tv or making calls on a flip phone.
