Daniels County prioritizes sheriff radio work and weighs tower, fiber and siren options as vendors schedule on-site work

Commissioners spent a substantial portion of the Oct. 20 meeting on public-safety communications, including concerns that a recently poured tower footing may not support the microwave paths needed for base stations and that fiber could be a better primary route for connectivity.

Technical staff and the county's contractor described a recent outage and a check of tower geometry, concluding that the current footing location could make microwave links impractical. Commissioners discussed the county's existing contracts and the cost already spent (one speaker mentioned about $12,000 poured in concrete footings). The vendor and county engineers recommended further fact-finding before moving or selling the tower and suggested temporarily using a wood pole to mount a siren if that would meet immediate needs.

Motorola and state technicians will be on site the following week to complete console work, program handhelds and install mobile radios. Brian, the Motorola representative, told the commission the top priority is getting the sheriff's mobile radios installed and programmed first; he said Motorola could complete several radios on the first day and then continue installation work over additional days.

Separately, county staff took a remote briefing from T-Mobile about network improvements. T-Mobile representatives described recent tower upgrades, a new T-Satellite texting/data feature for areas without cell coverage, and a "T Priority" service that can reserve network capacity for first responders; they offered free coverage demos and a bill review for the county.

Next steps: engineers and Motorola will coordinate a multi-day on-site work plan; staff will consolidate action items and priority tasks into a single email thread for scheduling and to ensure radios for patrol vehicles are completed first.