Routt County Moves Communications Center, Upgrades Microwave Network with Castle Rock Microwave

Routt County is in northwest Colorado, and its county seat is Steamboat Springs. With a population of roughly 25,000, the county provides emergency services for its inhabitants and public safety radio communications are essential.

The communications traffic is carried over a microwave network that includes 800MHz Digital Trunk Radio for the Colorado State Patrol, Colorado Department of Transportation, and local partners including the Routt County Sheriff, Steamboat Springs Police, Hayden and Oak Creek police, and five fire protection districts. VHF is also used for paging, alerting and backup to the primary 800MHz network.

Thanks to Castle Rock Microwave, Routt County has significantly upgraded its countywide communications network.

A Two-phase Challenge

Routt County had two challenges: it was moving its Emergency Communications Center and its dispatchers into a new wing of a building, and in the same timeframe it wanted to upgrade two sites of its microwave network to replace outdated radios.

The Communications Center move would occur in the middle of winter, however, and it wasn’t practical or cost-effective to upgrade the mountain-based microwave sites in deep snow.

“We signed an agreement with the State of Colorado to replace our old Harris microwave system, which was installed in 2002 and was reaching the end of its life,”

said Jason Nettles, Emergency Communications Manager for Routt County.

“Part of our agreement required Routt County to maintain communications into that system from our Communications Center, and as we were planning to move our Communications Center, that was a challenge.”

Nettles had met Brett Bonomo, President of Castle Rock Microwave, at a conference a year or so before the project came up.

“He impressed me with his level of knowledge and experience,” says Nettles.

“After talking with Brett about our project, I knew Castle Rock Microwave could do the job, so we chose them to do the work. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Moving the Communications Center

The first task was to maintain connectivity with the state’s network during the move from the old Communications Center to the new one.

Castle Rock Microwave came up with a creative way for the county to maintain connectivity between its old and new Communications Centers, so it wasn’t necessary to work on the mountain during winter.

“It’s about 800 feet between the old and new Communications Centers, and Castle Rock Microwave deployed two 5GHz unlicensed radios to carry the T1 traffic,” says Nettles.

“Instead of using antennas to connect them, they ran coax cable between them. We used that setup for three months.”

This enabled the county to continue using its existing microwave link at the old Communications Center.

"That solution cost us less than $4000, while working on the mountain in the winter would have cost considerably more," says Nettles.

Upgrading the Microwave Network

When the weather improved, Castle Rock Microwave deployed new Cielo SkyLink CG2X radios at the Communications Center and also on Emerald Mountain and a new link to Mount Werner.

“We had an existing path between our old center and Emerald Mountain, and we repurposed some of that equipment because it was only three years old,” says Nettles.

The Communications Center uses two microwave radios – one to Mt. Werner at 11GHz, and one to Emerald at 18GHz. The link to Emerald Mountain is less than three miles, and the link to Mt. Werner is roughly seven miles.

The engagement with Castle Rock Microwave started in the middle of 2018, and the final microwave implementation was on August 15, 2019.

“There were a lot of conference calls, screen-sharing and phone interactions, as we worked with the state, our tower site contractor, our Communications Center and Castle Rock Microwave. Everyone worked together really well,” says Nettles.

Nettles and his team were particularly impressed with Castle Rock Microwave’s idea about how the county could maintain its connectivity up with the state network during the Communications Center relocation.

“We had thought we were going to have to do some work on at least one of the tower sites in the middle of winter, but Castle Rock Microwave came up with some out-of-the-box thinking to avoid that.”

Thanks to Castle Rock Microwave’s creativity and a solid partnership with Routt County’s team, the entire job was done on time and on budget, and the county has a revamped microwave network connected to its new Communications Center.

“I’m very happy with the Castle Rock Microwave team,” says Nettles.

Fiber isn't everywhere. Castle Rock Microwave solves network connectivity issues with mission critical communications wherever you need it most. To learn more about how Castle Rock Microwave solves network connectivity challenges, please call 303-829-8838 or visit https://castlerockmicrowave.com/. For more information about Routt County, Colorado, please visit https://co.routt.co.us/.