Radio Towers

With the number of cellular telephone customers growing exponentially, the number of radio towers needed to provide service for all areas of Carroll County will have to increase as well. The issue the county commissioners need to resolve is where to place these towers.In urbanized areas, the cellular radio towers are usually unobtrusively situated on the roofs of tall buildings. They are hardly noticeable and blend in with the city scape. But in a rural county such as Carroll with virtually no tall buildings, these towers -- some as high as 250 feet -- are hard to miss.

AURORA, Ill. - A helicopter that crashed while transferring an infant girl between hospitals overnight likely hit a radio tower guy wire with enough force to rip the main rotor blade shaft from the craft while it was still in the air, investigators said yesterday. The collision showered an apartment complex parking lot nearby with rotor fragments and sent the helicopter into an out-of-control spin that ended in a fiery crash in a field below, killing all four aboard. "A rotor blade is not designed to travel through anything but air," said National Transportation Safety Board Investigator-in-Charge John Brannen.

BY GIVING WCBM-AM a conditional use permit to construct six radio towers on farm property off Hoods Mill Road in southern Carroll, the county's Board of Zoning Appeals has thrust the door wide open for other radio stations to place these monstrosities just about any place they please. Considering the obtrusive nature of large radio towers, the board should have paid more attention to the long-range implications of its action.Many stations would love to move their towers to Carroll, particularly those with facilities now on valuable real estate.

Nearly nine years ago, Carroll County installed a highly touted, advanced radio emergency communications system. But the Lineboro Volunteer Fire Department was still plagued by dead spots where communication was impossible. Now, a new 340-foot communications tower is up and running outside of Lineboro. It was officially placed in service at 3:15 p.m. March 31, said Randy Waesche Jr., the county's Emergency Communications Center coordinator. The county will hold a ribbon cutting for the tower at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

The Carroll County Commissioners approved an ordinance yesterday restricting clusters of communications towers to industrial land, a move that effectively kills a six-tower project proposed by WCBM-AM Radio for a South Carroll farm.The Owings Mills station has faced stiff opposition from neighbors of its proposed tower site on Hoods Mill Road near Route 97 and the Howard County line.WCBM Vice President Louis Mangione had planned to build six 350-foot radio towers on about 55 acres of a 400-acre farm owned by Harold and Esther Mercer.

The possibility of six 350-foot radio towers still looms in South Carroll.A Baltimore County radio station is appealing in Carroll County Circuit Court a decision that prevents construction of the towers a Hoods Mill Road farm, near Route 97 and the Howard County line.William B. Dulany, the attorney for WCBM-AM radio and the owners of the 400-acre farm, requested Friday a judicial review of the Board of Zoning Appeals action, which reversed the original approval for the project.A new county ordinance placed the appeals board in the awkward position of having to reverse itself.

Although a newly drafted county ordinance might make the project illegal, the Board of Zoning Appeals continues its hearing at 9:30 a.m. today on a WCBM Radio proposal to build six towers on a South Carroll farm.The county has scheduled a public hearing at 9 a.m. Monday on the ordinance, drafted after the tower project was made public. It would limit multiple towers to industrial land.The owners of WCBM-AM radio plan to build six 350-foot towers on the Mercer farm on Hoods Mill Road, near Route 97 and the Howard County line.

The county commissioners approved an ordinance yesterday restricting clusters of communications towers to industrial land, a move that effectively kills a six-tower project proposed by WCBM-AM Radio for a South Carroll farm.The Owings Mills radio station has faced stiff opposition from neighbors of its proposed tower site on Hoods Mill Road near Route 97 and the Howard County line.WCBM Vice President Louis Mangione had planned to build six 350-foot radio towers on about 55 acres of a 400-acre farm owned by Harold and Esther Mercer.

While the county Board of Zoning Appeals considered radio towers on a Sykesville farm yesterday, the Carroll County commissioners were amending a year-old ordinance that would limit "tower clusters" to industrial land.WCBM-AM radio has an option to buy the 400-acre farm on Hoods Mill Road, near Route 97 and the Howard County line. The station, which no longer can serve its listeners from its four towers in Owings Mills, plans to build six 350-foot steel towers on about 55 acres.The sales contract, signed July 26 by farm owners Esther and Harold Mercer, is contingent on the station obtaining a conditional use from the zoning board.

INSTEAD OF raising crops, South Carroll's future seems to be in growing radio towers. The announcement that WCBM-AM is seeking zoning approval to construct six 350-foot towers comes on the heels of a two-year controversy over the construction of a 200-foot cellular phone tower near Sykesville.The radio towers would be located on what has been the 389-acre farm of Harold Mercer off Hoods Mill Road near the border of Carroll and Howard counties. Mr. Mercer has agreed to sell all but five acres to WCBM.

No sooner had a 46-truck convoy of Baltimore first-responders and equipment left for Louisiana on Sunday than it received an education in emergency communications: Even state-of-the-art systems can fail. Heading south on Interstate 81, the city's new 800-megahertz radios did not always work long-range because the national network of radio towers was not switched on or available everywhere. "That surprised us; they were supposed to work across state lines," said Mayor Martin O'Malley. "That's something we're going to have to revisit."

Carroll County's seven-member Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved site plans yesterday for a communications tower in the northeast part of the county, signaling a major step forward in filling a long-standing gap in its emergency services. "I think this is a milestone as to improving life safety in Carroll County," said Scott Campbell, acting administrator of support services for the county's Office of Public Safety. "This is a critically important site for Carroll County volunteer emergency services.

The Carroll commissioners signed an option yesterday to purchase a 6-acre property in Lineboro that could be home of a new radio tower expected to alleviate problems with emergency communications in the northeast area of the county. The commissioners will pay $100,000 for the parcel on Alesia-Lineboro Road, owned by Donald J. and Catherine L. Fasca Sr. The county must purchase land for road access before building the tower on the site. The commissioners will forgo another option to buy a 3-acre lot on Rupp Road that also was considered a potential site for the tower.

Giving themselves a choice between two possible sites for a radio tower to alleviate problems with emergency communications in the northeast area of the county, the Carroll commissioners signed an option yesterday to buy a parcel on Alesia-Lineboro Road. The 6.874-acre wooded property, owned by Donald J. and Catherine L. Fasca Sr. at 4509 Alesia-Lineboro Road, would cost the county $100,000. The lot is larger than one on which the commissioners signed a purchase option in February, meaning that if the 330-foot tower fell it would not land on neighboring property, said Howard S. Redman, the county's public safety director.

Neighbors of land under consideration by the Carroll commissioners for a radio tower are asking county officials to find another site. A petition with more than 30 signatures has been delivered to the commissioners, who voted last week to sign an option for the county to buy a parcel near Lineboro for a tower that would eliminate a gap in emergency radio communications in the northeast area of the county. "Our purpose is to get you guys a site that's not in our back yard," Stan Dabkowski, a neighbor of the property and an organizer of the petition drive, told county public safety Director Howard S. Redman this week.

Ending a seven-month wait, the Federal Communications Commission decided yesterday to allow a 340-foot-high emergency radio tower just outside historic Ellicott City -- an announcement that relieved Howard County officials and dismayed neighbors. The tower -- a key part of an upgrade to the county's public safety communications system -- attracted controversy as soon as local officials announced the site, which is next to Howard District Court and overlooks the quaint 19th-century mill town.

Opponents of a proposal by a Baltimore radio station to place six transmission towers on a South Carroll farm finally got their chance to tell the Board of Zoning Appeals yesterday why the towers shouldn't be built.In the third day of hearings before the board, neighbors of the Mercer farm on Hoods Mill Road near Route 97 and the Howard County line told the three-member panel that the construction of the 350-foot towers would decrease property values, create ugly views and might pose unspecified medical dangers.

Ending a seven-month wait, the Federal Communications Commission decided yesterday to allow a 340-foot-high emergency radio tower just outside historic Ellicott City - an announcement that relieved Howard County officials and dismayed neighbors. The tower - a key part of an upgrade to the county's public safety communications system - attracted controversy as soon as local officials announced the site, which is next to Howard District Court and overlooks the quaint 19th-century mill town.