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Public question prompts technical briefing on intermittent warning-siren failures; county weighs $4,700-per-siren receiver upgrades
Summary
A public question about why outdoor warning sirens failed prompted Sheriff Kevin Glenni to explain technicians are diagnosing an intermittent microwave-link failure; staff estimated a receiver upgrade at about $4,700 per siren (approximately $75,000 countywide for 15 siren locations) to migrate to the statewide ESInet system.
A member of the public asked whether the county’s outdoor warning sirens were failing; Sheriff Kevin Glenni and emergency communications staff provided a detailed technical briefing about intermittent failures and potential fixes.
Sheriff Glenni said technicians examined both the microwave link between a Dane Street tower and the DeskCon hub and local receiver equipment. He described the county’s transition of public-safety radio systems from legacy VHF to a statewide ESInet (7800 MHz) interoperability system. Because some siren receivers still rely on older VHF links, intermittent microwave transmission failures have caused at least one siren (the Minneapolis/Minneapolis-area unit referenced in the record) to require manual activation.
Glenni said options include identifying and fixing the microwave path or replacing receivers to run on the ESInet system. He gave an approximate per-location estimate of $4,700 to replace a receiver and noted one county’s inventory of 15 sirens would total roughly $75,000 to upgrade countywide; he said costs would need to be approved by each entity that owns sirens. The county is also exploring short-term redundancy via alternate radio transmission paths while technicians continue diagnostic work.
Why it matters: outdoor warning sirens are a public-safety infrastructure; intermittent failures raise concerns about alerting residents before severe weather or other emergencies.
What’s next: technicians are continuing diagnostics and the county will evaluate replacement and redundancy options; any upgrade spending would require formal approval by the responsible entities.
