LAURINBURG — Reaching 399 feet into the sky, Scotland County now has a new tower in its skyline for residents to admire.

Construction on the tower began Feb. 5 after Mike Edge, director of Scotland County Emergency Communications, presented the plans for constructing the new tower tothe Scotland County Board of Commissioners during its January meeting.

The new tower is located at the Scotland County Emergency Operations Center on West Boulevard.

The county partnered with Verizon Wireless and NC Highway Patrol on funding to construct the new tower complex and put it into use.

Verizon Wireless is funding the new tower while NC Highway Patrol is funding a new concrete communication shelter to replace the old shelter for their radio equipment — and an additional $119,000 was approved by the board to complete all upgrades for the project.

“The new 399-foot tower is 50 feet taller than our old tower and will give us more height,” said Edge. “Also we are replacing all the lines and antenna with new ones, since they are probably the age of the old tower that was built in 1983.”

Some of the radio systems in the communication shelter are scheduled for replacement, and the radio consoles in the communication center will be replaced by NC 911 Board funding.

“The new radio consoles will be connected to the communications shelter through a fiber connection through the city of Laurinburg,” said Edge, “instead of a 50-pair copper cable that has caused us some issues in the past with lighting strikes.”

“All of these improvements will make the communications issues that have been experienced in the past better,” continued Edge.

The tower makes it possible for the 911 Communications Center to communicate with EMS, fire and law enforcement along with some city and county agencies such as public works.

According to Edge, this project is actually three projects — the first project is to replace the communication tower, the second is to upgrade radios and the third is to upgrade communications in the 911 building.

JJ Melton can be reached at 1-910-506-3169 or [email protected].

https://www.laurinburgexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/web1_tower-1.jpg

https://www.laurinburgexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/web1_tower-2.jpg

https://www.laurinburgexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/web1_tower-3.jpg

https://www.laurinburgexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/web1_tower-6.jpg

https://www.laurinburgexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/web1_tower-8.jpg

https://www.laurinburgexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/web1_edge-2.jpg
399-foot tower will improvecommunications for EMS,fire and law enforcement

JJ Melton

Staff writer