WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE — At the Fayette County Commissioners meeting on Monday, Dr. John Nestor and Jim Scott, both licensed GMRS radio operators (General Mobile Radio System), spoke to the commissioners regarding adding two repeaters in the county area to help provide safety communications to the citizens.
They suggested the county add to a proposed plan of the City of Washington Court House to purchase and install a repeater to improve communication within the city.
When cell towers and cell phone systems are not operable, how do people communicate with each other, within a family or group? GMRS radios have become very popular, are inexpensive and provide the safety needed for a response to any disaster, very bad weather, or tragedy within the county.
For example, out on a farm when working on a tractor, a worker might have an accident and his cell phone does not have any reception or falls off the tractor — a belt-clipped radio might be his only salvation to radio for help. Radio frequencies work on distance and if a repeater was placed at the north and south of the county’s 406 square miles, and one repeater placed in town by the city, there would be better coverage of radio waves to bounce between repeaters, according to Nestor.
As Nestor and Scott reiterated, when cell towers go down, citizens have no emergency radio system like first responders are able to access. FEMA recommended a Continuity Plan in 2018 for communities to establish a contingency plan for citizens when there are power outages, infrastructure failures, or cell towers are no longer operable. Outages could be due to maintenance, criminal damaging, unscheduled maintenance, fires, floods, tornadoes or accidental power outages.
The country has evolved away from old traditional landline phones in homes, and are sometimes not reliable in a drastic event, according to Nestor. Public safety has robust two-way radio systems, but citizens do not. Ham radios require training, testing and licensing. However, GMRS radios are affordable. The license for an individual or family is $35 for a 10-year license, and have many options. There are no monthly fees and they are more powerful than the old CB radios.
Nestor and Scott asked the commissioners to join the city effort to provide a safety alternative for this area. City Manager Joe Denen was in attendance and provided a copy of the cost proposal the city received as they consider purchasing a repeater for installation near the fire department building, centrally located in the center of town.
The commissioners requested that Nestor and Scott evaluate where the repeaters might be located, such as in Jeffersonville and/or Wayne Township, or other areas for consideration. There are 22 talk channels and eight repeater channels that are accessible pursuant to FCC regulations. A radio must connect to a repeater to gain transmission distance throughout the county.
Nestor and Scott will be exploring sites in the county for towers or the placement of repeaters for this endeavor.
In other news from the commissioners’ office, Larry Gray reported that the Board of Developmental Disabilities will be moving forward to replace the roof on their building on Robinson Road. The current roof is approximately 30 years old and they have received two bids for consideration.
In another presentation, Rick Claes, Drew Zazofsky and Tim Ryan spoke about the Thornton project on Old 35, and Garringer-Edgefield Road improvements planned in the area between the Love’s Truck Stop and the Flying J for a QuikTrip facility to help handle the numerous trucks that will be entering and leaving the Honda plant in the Jeffersonville area.
They are planning roadway and traffic improvements off Old 35 and the $1 million improvements are hard for a single facility to afford. The widening of Garringer-Edgefield Road and traffic signals that might be needed are a great expense for one facility when they are off-site, and funds were being requested from the commissioners to offset a portion of the extraordinary project costs.
Claes said that he worked for the Thornton company for more than 35 years and “this project and the commissioner assistance might be a catalyst for more development in the area.”
The QuikTrip facility would be a $10 million investment in the area with the building, paving and additions to the site.
