Somerset County, Pa., Radio Comm Upgrades Taking Shape

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(TNS) – A Somerset County radio communications tower is now online in Larimer Township, and work is underway to add equipment to another tower in Allegheny Township, county officials said Tuesday.

The work is part of a nearly $4 million project to reduce emergency radio “dead zones” for first responders.

Salisbury fire Chief Dave Short Jr . said Tuesday he was glad to hear the project is moving toward completion. Time will tell if the upgrades are difference-makers, he added.

“Once we get a call in those (poor service) areas … and we’re communicating back and forth, that’s when we’ll know if it helps,” Short said of the Larimer Township tower. “It’s one of those things where you don’t know until you really use it.”

The Somerset County commissioners voted 3-0 Tuesday to approve a contract with Pennsylvania Propane Gas Co., of Rockwood, to add propane heating to an equipment storage building at the Allegheny Township tower, located on Deeter Gap Road near New Baltimore.

The commissioners said the equipment must be protected from the cold.

Somerset County 911 Operations Manager Craig Hollis-Nicholson said a pre-existing cellphone tower is being upgraded at the site. A vendor is installing equipment in the building, and weather permitting, Motorola will soon hire a contractor to install radio antennas on space that the county is leasing on the tower, he said.

Microwave communications dishes will also be installed in the coming months to link the tower to the county’s 911 communications system, Hollis-Nicholson said.

The project, delayed in part by supply chain issues, was first announced in 2021 in response to first responders’ complaints about having difficulty communicating in certain rural areas.

Due to the county’s rugged terrain, officials have said they won’t be able to eliminate communication issues across every inch of the county. But the project is meant to tackle the worst of the problems.

The Larimer Township tower was set up near Callimont Borough and switched on earlier this year, Hollis-Nicholson said.

Portable emergency radios designed to operate on the 800-megahertz system were also set to be replaced as part of the project.

Hollis-Nicholson said the goal is to have the entire project complete by October.

For the first time in a few years, Somerset County’s 911 telecommunicators have a nearly full staff.

With two more employees hired Tuesday and another longtime employee returning, the county now has 18 full-time telecommunicators and four part-time workers.

Just one full-time and one part-time position are now vacant among 24 total posts, Commissioner Irv Kimmel Jr. said.

By comparison, the county had 11 vacancies last summer, at a point when the county and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees reached a deal to boost telecommunicator pay.

Angela Emerick was reassigned to a full-time telecommunicator role after spending the last several months as 911 coordinator. President Commissioner Brian Fochtman said the move was Emerick’s “voluntary” decision.

Hollis-Nicholson is currently overseeing the department as 911 operations manager, and Fochtman said the county is also “reassessing” the center’s existing leadership structure, with the hope that additional decisions will be made in the coming weeks.

“But we’re really encouraged about the staffing levels” at the 911 center, Fochtman said. “The crew over there is doing a good job.”