“SCHENECTADY COUNTY — A $610,436 state Homeland Security grant has been secured to help improve police, fire and medical emergency communications in western Schenectady County.
The money will be used to increase the height of an emergency radio antenna in Duanesburg, as well as to pay for a countywide study of whether there are other communications deficiencies and what would be needed to fix them, said Kevin Spawn, deputy director of the county’s Unified Communications Center.
Sheriff Dominic Dagostino acknowledged there are communications “dead spots” in the rural part of the county — particularly in the Duanesburg area — where patrol cars have trouble sending and receiving radio transmissions.
“There are dead spots, but I prefer not to go into detail for intelligence reasons,” he said.
The problem, Spawn told the Legislature on Monday, is at least in part due to the hilly terrain in that part of the county. Increasing the height of the tower should help significantly, he said.
The plan is to replace the 90-foot tower with one 200 feet tall or taller, allowing signals to go farther. When questioned by a legislator, Spawn said the tower would be for county use only, with little prospect of it also being shared by private cellular communication companies.
The county Legislature will vote next week to accept the grant from the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, with a requirement that the work be completed by the end of 2018. The state is paying for the work as part of its effort to develop a statewide inter-operable emergency communications system.
The grant required no local match, according to county spokesman Joe McQueen.
The Schenectady County grant was among a series of emergency radio system upgrade grants announced in March by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, all for upgrades to county-operated radio systems or their associated equipment. Other Capital Region counties to receive grants include Albany, $1 million; Fulton, $437,407; Montgomery, $447,091; Saratoga, $874,563; and Schoharie, $436,557.”
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Williams, Stephen. Schenectady Gazette 8 June 2017.