Many questions posed about the ARMER tower that will be built this summer on the Seagull Access Road near the Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department (GTVFD) Fire Hall 3 will be answered at an upcoming April 10 meeting.
The meeting will be at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 10 at Fire Hall 1, which is located mid Trail.
Some controversy ensued following the announcement that the 80-foot Allied Radio Matrix for Emergency Response (ARMER) tower would be built where some area residents and cabin owners purportedly would easily see it.
But the GTVFD already has a radio tower on that site that when fully extended is 78 feet tall. Currently, the tower is at full height so residents and those concerned can see its visual impact, which is minimal and virtually impossible to see in the tree line from Seagull Lake.
When the new tower is up, the old tower will come down.
Spotty radio communication for emergency workers and first responders has long been a problem at the end of the Gunflint Trail, as well as other places in the county due to the hilly terrain and thick forests.
According to the letter released by the GTVFD, “The GTVFD, Search and Rescue, and the Sheriff ’s Department have numerous first-hand experiences trying to manage emergencies without the ability to communicate. We’ve had medical emergencies where help and equipment were literally a few blocks away, but responders were heading in opposite directions because we couldn’t talk to each other.
“Priority number one for all EMS personnel is your safety. Don’t complicate an already heightened situation by making yourself a victim rather than a responder.
“Communication is paramount. From the large multi-agency events like the blowdown of 1999 or the Ham Lake fire of 2007 to simply responding to a CO detector that has been activated, having the ability to communicate is one of the most important tools in our arsenal.”
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), Cook County, and the GTVFD worked together to identify the need and examine all options to correct the communication problems at the end of the trail.
Options discussed ranged from putting up a 180-foot tower at the Seagull Guard station (as well at other possible sites, and tower heights) until it was decided to place an 80-foot tower at Hall 3.
To keep the Seagull tower at 80 feet, the GTVFD is paying an estimated $10,000 to run a dedicated broadband line between the primary tower at Gunflint Lake to the tower at Seagull. Without the broadband line, the tower would have had to be built much taller to maintain a line-of-sight connection with the Gunflint tower.
As mandated by the Minnesota Legislature and MnDOT, towers with ARMER equipment designed to send and receive ARMER signals are being installed throughout the state of Minnesota. This process will include allowing agencies to use a series of towers throughout the state to connect agencies under one communication system. This work is still ongoing throughout Cook County as well as the rest of Minnesota.
Currently the Gunflint Trail has two primary towers at Gunflint Lake and Mid-Trail. Both are equipped with the ARMER system.
Soon there will a third ARMER tower linking to the system. To learn more about it, attend the meeting on Tuesday, April 10.
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