County works to repair radio repeater tower

Courtesy photo The destroyed radio repeater tower.

Image courtesy of GOOGLE MAPS The yellow dot shows the location of Goose Peak where a radio repeater tower was recently damaged by the rough winter weather prompting a reaction from Shoshone County officials.

by JOSH McDONALD
Local Editor | January 29, 2018 12:52 PM

WALLACE — The rough North Idaho winter weather recently knocked out a radio repeater tower on top of Goose Peak (north of Wallace) and Shoshone County is working to get the tower repaired.

A radio repeater is a combination of a radio receiver and a radio transmitter that receives a signal and retransmits it, so that two-way radio signals can cover longer distances.

A repeater sited at a high elevation can allow two mobile stations, otherwise out of line-of-sight propagation range of each other, to communicate.

Repeaters are found in professional, commercial and government mobile radio systems, and also in amateur radio.

According to Shoshone County commissioner Mike Fitzgerald, getting the tower repaired is incredibly important for several reasons.

“The Goose Peak repeater tower houses communication equipment that is essential to multiple responding and emergency agencies operating in the northeastern portions of our county and adjoining Montana,” Fitzgerald said.

The primary agencies that maintain equipment at the site include the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office, regional fire departments and the Emergency Management Services Corporation (the Silver Valley’s Emergency Responder and Ambulance provider).

Earlier this month, the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office accessed the site to perform a preliminary assessment of the situation, which revealed that the tower and an Avista backup generator had been damaged.

Because of this damage, agency communications had been interrupted.

ICRMP, the county’s insurer, was contacted the next day and authorized the county to quickly move forward with temporary repairs.

This prompted county public works employees to work through the night to get the access road to the tower cleared so the repairs could be made.

“The county is moving as quickly as possible to restore temporary services,” Fitzgerald said. “There definitely a few hurdles we will have to overcome: tough access, weather, extent of the repairs and delivery of replacement equipment. Moving forward, Avista will visit the site to confirm and make required power repairs and the county’s communications specialist will similarly be on-site during the next few days.”

Earlier this week, Fitzgerald and the Shoshone Board of County Commissioners met with Sheriff Mike Gunderson to formally document the incident and actions taken to date, outline future repair activities and define financial resources to address the repairs.

In the long run, the county will be working with the site-sharing agencies, the insurance company and specialists to have permanent communication fixtures installed this summer.