Cass County Communications "blackout"

[realgeo]

Good morning, everyone!

I think we can all agree that the weather situation this weekend has been somewhat "unusual" compared to Springtimes past.

Saturday night, during all of the rough weather in Iowa, I happened to notice that Cass County's ability to communicate with its Deputies, Rescue, and Fire personnel became severely compromised as the evening wore on.

I believe most of the problem was probably due to a power outage in the Manley area, which apparently took out 154.8150, 154.3850, and the Weeping Water UHF repeater.

In fact, I heard one of the Dispatchers mention to a Deputy that Plattsmouth was unable to page anyone who was on the Cass Fire repeater. This would've left only Murray (39.9000) and maybe Union (UHF) if they had power.

As midnight approached, most communications were happening over the Plattsmouth Fire repeater and 154.8150 simplex, as Louisville was handling a working fire in the Raven's Nest housing area near Cedar Creek.

NeFire242 - you'll LOVE this! For a period of time around 2300, I heard 2 or 3 Deputies talking to Plattsmouth on 39.9000 and later directly on 154.8150. When the repeaters fail, you always have low-band that continues to work!

My question is this: Was it the power outage, itself, that took out Cass Sheriff, Cass Fire, and WW's UHF? Or was the drop-off due to generator(s) running out of fuel, or batteries discharging?

With a situation like this, one has to hope that money is being located to purchase equipment that would help keep the radio system on the air longer, in a situation like this.

Agreed - the 800 MHz. system is coming along nicely, but it's going to be awhile before it's totally implemented and everyone moved onto it. And even when it's fully implemented, there still needs to be backup for Cass Fire since it will be the paging transmitter.

Another question for those in-the-know: What is the generator / battery backup situation for each of the 3 new 800MHz. sites?

Have a GREAT day.

73's

 

[SDOG]

Cass Blackout

There are propane fueled generators at both KOTD and Queen Hill sites. I am not sure what is at the KPTM site, however, they are runing on Sarpys power so I would assume that there is good back up power. There will be some back up redundency for cass fire as a cass fire east is being set up on Queen Hill site. The Plattsmouth Fire system was fully operational during the entire period of the storms. Louisville utilized the system during the ravens nest incident.

As far as what caused the outage, I have no idea.
Hope this helps!!

Good morning, everyone!

I think we can all agree that the weather situation this weekend has been somewhat "unusual" compared to Springtimes past.

Saturday night, during all of the rough weather in Iowa, I happened to notice that Cass County's ability to communicate with its Deputies, Rescue, and Fire personnel became severely compromised as the evening wore on.

I believe most of the problem was probably due to a power outage in the Manley area, which apparently took out 154.8150, 154.3850, and the Weeping Water UHF repeater.

In fact, I heard one of the Dispatchers mention to a Deputy that Plattsmouth was unable to page anyone who was on the Cass Fire repeater. This would've left only Murray (39.9000) and maybe Union (UHF) if they had power.

As midnight approached, most communications were happening over the Plattsmouth Fire repeater and 154.8150 simplex, as Louisville was handling a working fire in the Raven's Nest housing area near Cedar Creek.

NeFire242 - you'll LOVE this! For a period of time around 2300, I heard 2 or 3 Deputies talking to Plattsmouth on 39.9000 and later directly on 154.8150. When the repeaters fail, you always have low-band that continues to work!

My question is this: Was it the power outage, itself, that took out Cass Sheriff, Cass Fire, and WW's UHF? Or was the drop-off due to generator(s) running out of fuel, or batteries discharging?

With a situation like this, one has to hope that money is being located to purchase equipment that would help keep the radio system on the air longer, in a situation like this.

Agreed - the 800 MHz. system is coming along nicely, but it's going to be awhile before it's totally implemented and everyone moved onto it. And even when it's fully implemented, there still needs to be backup for Cass Fire since it will be the paging transmitter.

Another question for those in-the-know: What is the generator / battery backup situation for each of the 3 new 800MHz. sites?

Have a GREAT day.

73's

 

[realgeo]

Good morning, SDOG!

Thanks for the info on the 800 MHz. system! I assumed that each of those sites had pretty good backup power already installed, since they all provide "infrastructure"-type services.

You're definitely right about the Plattsmouth Fire repeater! Man, that thing really worked well, even with the units being clear out in the Cedar Creek area. What surprised me is that the Cedar Creek and Louisville radios already had that channel in them - that was a good decision.

With the kind of coverage that the PFD repeater was demonstrating, I'd almost have to guess that it originates from that tall tower on Kinder Morgan's property, south of town. It would be the only tower, besides the new 800MHz. tower, that would have sufficient coverage in the Cedar Creek area.

As far as I can tell, the only other public safety repeater that stayed operational during the entire period was the "Cass EMA" repeater, north of the Fairgrounds. Even though it wasn't carrying any operational traffic, I heard the Morse code ID on a regular basis throughout. Early-on in the "blackout", I heard a couple of Deputies trying to talk through the EMA repeater, but weren't having much luck.

It'll be good to have another "Cass Fire" on the Murray tower. Like I said, the power redundancy factor out at HW50 and HW1 is apparently somewhat in need of address!

73's


Have a GREAT day!

 

[43g70]

I would guess that KTPM would have generator to keep their stations on the air. So you would only need a UPS to keep your statoin alive through 8 to 10 seconds of no power for the generator to kick in.

43g70

 

[red8]

Yep, that's right. I know the 800 system at the department that I worked at needed UPS to keep it going until the backup generator kicked in.
red8

 

[NeFire242]

Don't you think "black out" is a little too dramatic?

Gee, why didn't you use your local ARES to assist for your communications needs....:roll:

 

[realgeo]

NeFire242 -

My goal was not to be dramatic - I suppose I could've used another term in place of "blackout", but considering the fact that Deputies had to use many alternate systems because the usual, and heavily-depended-upon, systems were completely inoperable, I'd say that "blackout" fits the situation fairly closely. Bottom line - semantics aren't important.

I was just curious as to what caused both the CCSO and CCFD repeaters to be off the air during a time when their operation was really needed.

We've all learned, thanks to SDOG, that the new 800MHz. system sites will have more-than-adequate backup power systems, which should prevent this kind of thing happening to that system.

However, when you can't page people to notify them of a need for assistance during an event, it's a real problem. True, the proper people were contacted using alternate methods, such as cell phones, and a working Plattsmouth Fire repeater, but the HW50/HW1 comm tower has long had power-related issues such as this.

As taxpayers, we have a right to ask/know about why systems that our tax dollars helped to build are sometimes not performing up to the expectations that our public agencies hold for them. Asking questions like this shouldn't be considered "anti-law-enforcement" or otherwise subversive to the work that law-enforcement is doing.

I'm just asking a question, as simple as Mr_O's description of how digital trunking systems work.

73's

 

[obijohn]

The HW50/HW1 comm tower has long had power-related issues such as this.

I will never understand why the tower site owner never supplied back-up power to the county repeaters.

The cell site building that is co-located there has a nice back-up generator. The cell people own the tower. They charge the county a substantial sum of money to have those repeaters on that tower.

You would think that the Sheriff would have been motivated to have back-up power there, if for nothing else-officer safety.

I would have thought that the tower owners would have wanted the tower lights on the generator, but they are on the electrical service that the County repeaters are on.

Somethings not right. Maybe one of you guys that go to the county mutual aid meetings can bring this topic up the next time Sheriff Bill or one of his minions show up.

 

[43g70]

It is not the tower owners job to provide back up power to the customer. Regardless who that customer is, govt, commercial, or the amateur.

As for the tower history, it was owned by Western Wireless(WWC) or Cellular One, then Alltel bought WWC in 2005 or 2006. But they couldn't not legally own both an A and B Cellular system, so US Cellular bought all but the Lincoln Market of the old Cellular One network which Alltel could keep due to the competition of the Market that has Alltel, US Cellular PCS, Sprint/Nextel, Cingular, Verizon, Cricket, and a few others.

From what I understand that US Cellular has done a lot or upgrades including generators, sectoring and data.

43g70

 

[obijohn]

It is not the tower owners job to provide back up power to the customer. Regardless who that customer is, govt, commercial, or the amateur.

Well...maybe it's not the norm, but it sure is a nice perk! Especially if you stop to think that it makes sense to have only one electrical panel at the site. Not to mention it makes grounding and bonding things much simpler for lightning protection.

Also, I must confess that my employer's tower site supplies back-up generator power to all of our customers. Some of our equipment transmits 24/7, thus requiring the addition of a rather large UPS.

I am also aware of several other privately owned towers in the Omaha metro area that do the same. ATS mobile telephone comes to mind as one. It is just makes sense for the tower owner to have back-up power, as I mentioned earlier, for the tower lights.

I can assure you that the tower lights are on back-up power at my agencies site.


obijohn

 

[43g70]

At tower sites like that I have seen in my travels, I have seen seperate power meters for seperate buildings.

 

[realgeo]

I can assure you that the tower lights are on back-up power at my agencies site.
obijohn

No doubt about that, ObiJohn! If nothing else, you'd want to have the tower lights on backup power to keep planes from flying into it.

Many times it's bad-weather situations like this one that take power out. It's also these kinds of situations that make flying at night difficult, when tower lighting is most important.

When a tower is dark for a certain amount of time, I know that the owner of the structure is required to notify the FAA so that they can, in turn, provide notification to pilots. I am not sure, however, what the time period is, but I would have to guess that Saturday night's event was probably reportable because of its proximity to both Lincoln and Omaha.

73's