These are the results and conclusions of a Zoom meeting on May 16th, 2024 between Mickey Cassar, Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) Field Engineer; Chip Keen, Clallam County Fire District 6 (CCFD6) commissioner; and Ed Bowen, Clallam County Emergency Management (CCEM) representative.
All three organizations hope to someday benefit from a communications tower placed at or near the Quillayute Airport (UIL). CCFD6 would like to improve mobile and hand-held radio emergency communications within the District and La Push. PNSN would like to tie communications from its sensor network at UIL to the dynamic PNSN network within Clallam and Jefferson Counties. CCEM would like to improve emergency communications between UIL and the Gunderson and Ellis repeaters, especially for operations involving air band communications.
Two potential tower locations were considered. The first is Signal Hill (County Parcel 152812120000), the second is the concrete pad area occupied by the former haul-out building across from the airport hanger. Both sites are owned by the City of Forks. Signal Hill has the advantage of being at a higher elevation, but its remote location would add to the cost of construction, operations, and maintenance. UIL has the advantage of easy access and all that comes with it, but is burdened by concerns about height restrictions near the runways and being at a comparatively lower elevation.
Given the distance of the concrete pad from the main runway, Cassar computed that a tower would be limited to a maximum height of 140 feet. At Keen's request, he produced maps of the theoretical broadcast coverage from UIL for tower heights of 10, 20, 30, and 40 meters, then a combined map of UIL at 20 meters and Signal Hill at 10 meters.
The following images show the estimated point-to-point communication coverages for each of the different tower heights from UIL (in pink) and the combined coverage when Signal Hill is added (in purple).
UIL 10 Meters
UIL 20 Meters
UIL 30 Meters
UIL 40 Meters
Signal Hill 10 Meters and UIL 20 Meters
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