Radio Towers

Howard County officials fear that a long wait for a Federal Communications Commission decision on whether the government can build a controversial 340-foot-tall tower overlooking historic Ellicott City might prove fatal to their multimillion-dollar effort to upgrade the county's emergency radio capability. Seven months after promising to quickly decide the issue, the FCC has not spoken. Even if the FCC approves the site soon, contractors will be battling to meet a radio licensing deadline, said Alan Ferragamo, deputy director of the county Department of Public Works.

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.

The state will allow Carroll County to build a telecommunications tower for its emergency operations radio system at Springfield Hospital Center in Sykesville.The county has been looking for a suitable site in South Carroll, where hilly terrain often causes gaps in radio communication coverage.In a letter dated July 12, the state Department of General Services notified Howard S. Redman Jr., chief of the county Bureau of Emergency Operations, that the county may place "a stub antenna tower or build a separate tower" on the hospital grounds.

Carroll officials assured volunteer firefighters yesterday that the county is moving ahead with construction of a radio tower in Lineboro to eliminate gaps in local emergency communications. But the county commissioners appeared lukewarm to a request to move the 911 emergency dispatch center from the County Office Building back to fire training headquarters on Washington Road south of Westminster. Those issues topped yesterday's quarterly meeting of the county commissioners and the Carroll County Volunteer Firemen's Association.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A group of residents say they hope the county's new Board of Commissioners will take a fresh look at their 6-year-old complaint over blinking lights on the WGRX-FM radio tower."

Before a radio station builds six towers on farmland in Carroll County, it will have to reckon with residents who say they don't want their views of the sky altered.WCBM-AM Radio in Owings Mills in Baltimore County has purchased a 389-acre farm on Hoods Mill Road near Route 97 and the Howard County line, and plans to build six 350-foot towers on about 55 acres at the east end of the property."The towers will stretch across an area similar to the South Carroll High School campus," C. Michael Wheeler, an area resident, told about 125 residents of Carroll and Howard counties who met at the school last night.