https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • IWCE 2022 Winter Showcase
    • IWCE 2023 Pre-event Guide
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookie Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • IWCE 2023 Pre-event Guide
    • IWCE 2022 Winter Showcase
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

content


The recovery continues

The recovery continues

When the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, New York lost what was arguably the best antenna sites in North America. At 1,368 feet above street level,
  • Written by Urgent Communications Administrator
  • 1st April 2002

When the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, New York lost what was arguably the best antenna sites in North America.

At 1,368 feet above street level, 1 WTC (the North Tower) was the tallest building on the eastern seaboard. This is why its 207-square-foot rooftop was dotted with antennas at five-foot intervals. At 1,362 feet, 2 WTC’s rooftop was also home to several antenna sites, including the New York State Police’s primary transmitter site for its Metro-21 800MHz EDACS trunking system. So the loss of the Twin Towers was a serious blow to public safety operators.

Before Sept. 11, communications site provider Pinnacle Towers was responsible for managing 1 WTC’s 42 non-broadcast client antennas. “We covered public safety networks, paging firms, cab companies — the works,” said Pinnacle Towers spokesman Joe Furmanek. Even high-level, “confidential” federal law enforcement agencies had sites there, according to Furmanek.

What was lost

So how have New York’s public safety networks recovered from the loss of the Twin Towers? Details are sketchy because government officials are reluctant to comment.

When the World Trade Center Towers fell, so did the primary site for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s 800MHz Ericsson EDACS trunking system. Also coming down were one of the New York Police Department’s 470MHz repeaters, plus two-way 400MHz Motorola systems used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, as well as the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In addition, the New Jersey Highway Patrol lost an 800MHz trunking system that covered two-thirds of New Jersey.

Pinnacle Towers scrambled to return its 1 WTC clients to the air. “Within 20 minutes of the North Tower collapsing, our staff started compiling alternative sites for our clients,” said Michael Millard, Pinnacle’s vice president of engineering and operations. Pinnacle had two alternative sites to offer: the 687-foot Chemical Bank Building at 277 Park Ave. and the 656-foot Alliance Building at 1345 6th Ave. Although “nowhere near as tall as the WTC was,” Millard said, these two properties still gave the area some degree of coverage.

Within hours, Pinnacle located its clients by phone and email and directed them to its alternative sites. “We also called the landlords of both buildings — we only manage their rooftops; we don’t own them — and advised them to give anyone with the proper government identification access to their rooftops,” Millard recalls. “We didn’t worry about paperwork; we just told our clients to get their antennas up as fast as they could, and we’d deal with the details later.”

Subcarrier Communications, which also had antennas on the World Trade Center, provided alternative sites, too.

Today, the recovery continues

“What we’ve been doing is redesigning and re-engineering Manhattan to provide coverage patterns similar to what was destroyed,” said John Paleski, Subcarrier’s president. “Needless to say, it takes more than one building to replace the WTC site. In fact, in some cases, we’ve had to use as many as five.”

For security reasons, Paleski would not reveal which Sub-carrier buildings were providing replacement coverage. However, he said that the sites were chosen and configured using RadioSoft propagation mapping software.

“We took our existing managed rooftops, plugged them into the WTC’s RF model, and then saw which properties we had that could help replace the lost coverage,” Paleski said. “In some cases, we then had to modify our towers to fill the bill; either by adding steel supports or upgrading their power, telephone or electrical supplies.”

This brings us to the tricky part: trying to say definitively where each of New York’s public safety networks stands today.

When the World Trade Center collapsed, the NYPD lost a 470MHz repeater. Since then, the police department has compensated by adding boosters to its other repeaters and by adding repeaters at other locations, said NYPD spokeswoman Carmen Melindez.

Meanwhile, the Fire Department of New York had lost a repeater on 7 WTC.

“We lost the repeater after the 47-story 7 WTC, which was damaged by debris and caught fire,” said Peter Gorman, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. The loss of this repeater seriously compromised service to firefighters using 15-year-old Motorola hand-helds within the WTC site, he added. This, in turn, may have resulted in some FDNY personnel not hearing the order to evacuate, and thus losing their lives when 1 WTC fell.

In addition, a source with the FDNY said that two phone lines were cut by the collapse, which also disrupted radio communications.

The New York State Police coped by moving some of its radio operations into the Chrysler Building. Using a five-channel 800MHz trunking system rushed to them by M/A-Com Wireless Systems, the NYSP connected four antennas and a combiner left over by previous tenants to get this replacement “up and running by the evening of the [Sept.] 12,” said NYSP dispatcher Sergeant Bob Jones last fall. M/A-Com also supplied 200 M-RK hand-held transceivers for the state police. Jones has been unvailable since then for further comment.

Finally, M/A-Com also helped the Port Authority set up a replacement command center in an unspecified location, using M/A-Com equipment shipped from Virginia. Together with the loan of 300 M/A-Com LPE hand-held transceivers, the replacement equipment restored the Port Authority’s radio communications coverage within a day of the attack.

Even with the site replacements and substitutions that New York’s rooftop managers provided, nothing fully replaces a 1,368-foot antenna site other than another 1,368-foot site.

What happens next

The trouble is, another 110-story structure is not likely to be built in New York. There would be too many bad memories associated with the previous colossal structure. Moreover, it could be impossible for most businesses to feel comfortable in a new WTC that might be an attractive target for terrorists.

Thus, the “temporary solutions” adopted by many NYC public safety networks may prove to be permanent. Whether the replacement facilities provide coverage as well as the World Trade Center did — or at least as well as is needed — will be revealed by the results of the next few months of use.


Careless is a freelance telecommunications writer based in Ottawa, ON, Canada. His email address is [email protected].

Communications at the Pentagon

The Public Safety Wireless Network has released an analysis of how successfully public safety communications worked at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. The report, released in February and called “Answering the Call: Communications Lessons Learned from the Pentagon Attack,” includes steps public safety agencies across the country can take to improve their radio communications.

“The Pentagon incident demonstrates in a very public way how critically important communications capabilities are for public safety agencies,” said Robert E. Lee Jr., PSWN Program Manager. “Imagine the challenge of 50 different local, state and federal public safety agencies responding at the Pentagon — 900 different radio users operating on multiple radio systems, and attempting to communicate with one another.”

Surprisingly, the report found that the because of “mutual-aid” agreements, the majority of local public safety responders at the scene experienced little difficulty establishing interoperable communications during the initial response. Most of the first responders had Arlington County’s radio frequencies pre-programmed into their portable radio equipment and had frequently used the capability for other mutual-aid responses.

The problem of interoperability arose as increased state and federal agencies arrived to help. No means of direct radio communication was immediately available to these secondary responders.

The PSWN report made the following recommendations for public safety agencies to enhance communications interoperability when responding to major or minor incidents:

  1. Develop regional and statewide communications systems.
  2. Establish mutual aid agreements and standard operating procedures not only between local agencies but also between state and federal agencies.
  3. Employ the Incident Command System to enhance communications efforts in emergency response situations.
  4. Conduct mass casualty and disaster response training drills to identify existing capabilities and potential shortfalls.
  5. Conduct communications asset inventory to identify tools and their capabilities.
  6. Adhere to common technology standards in the design, procurement and implementation of future public safety communications systems.
Tags: content

Most Recent


  • The recovery continues
    Newscan: Securing the Internet of Things is quite a challenge
    Also: EWA requests dismissal of 900 MHz applications; TIA names tech and policy priorities for 2014; IJIS Institute names Shumate Award winner; App makes bus waits more tolerable; a Blackberry comeback may be in the offing.
  • The recovery continues
    Newscan: FCC certifies Carlson Wireless's white-space radio
    Also: Congress looks to revamp telecom law; Obama to place some restraints on surveillance; IEEE to study spectrum-occupancy sensing for white-spaces broadband; Major Swedish transport operator opts for Sepura TETRA radios; RFMD to partner on $70 million next-generation power grid project; NENA opens registratiuon for "911 Goes to Washington."
  • The recovery continues
    Newscan: A look at the critical job of 911 dispatchers
    Also: NYC launches website for tracking 911 response times; Oregon implements 911 on pre-paid cell phones; LightSquared wants to keep spectrum assets; Harris receives multiple government orders; FCC extends rebanding financial reconciliation deadline; Zetron gear at core of communications system upgrade; Ritron debuts wireless access control system; EWA seeks policy review of VHF vehicular repeater system deployments.
  • The recovery continues
    Newscan: Average peak data rates of 144 MB/s average realized in tests with CAT 4 LTE device
    Also: Verizon, T-Mobile to swap unused spectrum to improve coverage; Internet giants oppose surveillance--but only when the government does it; FCC Chairman says incentive auction will be delayed until middle of 2015; FCC chair announces staff appointments; Alcatel-Lucent names Tim Krause as chief marketing officer; New Jersey county deploys TriTech CAD system; Toronto airport deploys 26-position Zetron console system;

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • RugGear: Contributing to the future of mission-critical broadband communication review and market vision
  • Photo gallery: 2014 Communications Marketing Conference (CMC) in Tucson
  • The recovery continues
    Top 5 Stories - Week of Sept. 22
  • The recovery continues
    RCA plans to expand this year's Technical Symposium

Commentary


Better technology can help solve the public-safety staffing crisis

26th June 2023

Updated: How ‘sidelink’ peer-to-peer communications can enhance public-safety operations

  • 1
27th February 2023

NG911 needed to secure our communities and nation

24th February 2023
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.