City of Bakersfield/Kern County
Regional Public Safety Radio
Network Replacement Project
The Implementation Teams
• 50+ individuals working on project
• City of Bakersfield – Communications Department & Management • Federal Engineering – Consulting services for Engineering, Site Development, and Project Management
• Motorola Solutions – Overall Turnkey System Vendor
• Equipment, Network Design, Engineering, Project Management, Training… • MNI – Microwave equipment vendor and MW engineering
• Pyramid Network Solutions – Site Development Vendor for Motorola
• Scout Services - Permitting
Current System vs New System
• The old radio system, which is over 30 years old, is for City use only, and many of the components are no longer supported, with no replacement parts available.
• This radio system replacement project began over 10 years ago and is just now being implemented. A lot of time and effort have been put into this specific network design to provide the optimum network. • City of Bakersfield’s current radio network consists of 10 sites and is an independent system. This number will be reduced to 6. • The new radio system is a joint venture with Kern County to create one large system with roughly 60 sites and over 50 additional microwave connections.
• This new network will allow county-wide interoperability for all users.
Police, Sheriff, Fire, Public Works, Dispatchers
City of Bakersfield New Sites
Complete - Joint Kern/Bakersfield System Network Design Future Public Safety Radio Network –
Countywide, with many more capabilities.
• The new radio system consists of and replaces 3 main
components
1. Dispatch equipment
2. Microwave network (how each site talks to each other and gets voice and data back to the core (brains).
3. Radio system – aka Land Mobile Radio (LMR) , the sites required to provide the radio coverage in order to operate on the same type of network that cellular companies require to operate.
Zoning Issues: Health Concerns
• Health Concerns:
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the government body that creates and enforces health safety guidelines for all communications systems in the Country.
• Everyone must adhere to these guidelines, including.
• Equipment Manufacturers (Motorola)
• Radio Operators & Owners (City of Bakersfield/Kern County) • Any health concerns must be addressed to the FCC because the City is well under the power levels allowed by the FCC as it pertains to health safety for the general public.
• The City took an additional step to ensure these requirements were being met by having an independent 3rd party do an Electromagnetic Energy (EME) study to ensure compliance.
Zoning Issues Continued: Technical
• New taller towers are critical for the new radio system. • Why not use old towers – over the past 30 years, new obstructions have come into play, such as tree growth and new development (buildings).
Old towers cannot be raised in height due to structural integrity determined by structural engineers.
• Every other option was explored before taller towers became the only solution to meet the requirements for a public safety grade network that will last another 25 years.
• The new microwave paths must have a 99.999% reliability rating to meet public safety radio system requirements.
• New microwave technologies require a lower tolerance for interference for reliability
Actual microwave path data:
Sites: Ag Water to Shafter LMR
• Trees with heights approaching 100 feet exist in the current path today. • Microwave engineers require a minimum of 20 feet of future tree growth to guarantee future reliability.
• Physics dictates that to clear a 118-foot obstruction with the required signal reliability, the antenna must be placed at 150 feet (AKA “The Fresnel zone”) • To guarantee that emergency communications continue during a storm, we don't just need to clear the center of the signal over the trees; we have to lift the entire 'belly' of that signal football over the obstructions.
Actual microwave path data:
Sites: Ag Water to Shafter LMR
Zoning Concerns - Aesthetics
• Communication Towers exist today, and nearby residences are used to seeing them. • The new towers being proposed are replacing existing towers at both the Ag Water and Panorama sites. The existing towers are not tall enough to meet the technical requirements.
Request for Zone Modifications
• Increase in allowable tower height:
• We have shown why it is critical to approve the request for an increase in the tower heights in these instances to ensure the technical reliability requirements discussed earlier. It is the only way the system will work properly over the expected system lifetime of 25 years. • Set back to residential properties decreased
• All areas within each property were tirelessly reviewed, and ultimately, the locations chosen met the only usable ground space to meet the requirements for the footprint of new towers and meet the technical requirements discussed earlier.
Request for Zone Modifications to be granted.
• The Zoning Staff supports approval of this zoning case and found that the stringent requirements have been met.
• We, too, believe all conditions have been addressed and met, and ask that the Commission approve No. PP-ADR-25-0002 and Zoning Modification No. ZM-25-0007
• We are asking for Commission approval this evening, as time is of the essence on this project. Timely completion of this new radio network is of immediate public safety concern; the current system is held together by obsolete equipment with no replacement parts available. From a purely engineering technical point of view, this system cannot operate properly without these new towers at the requested heights and exact locations.