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ilc <br />Robin Blanton: Again, I'm Robin Blanton with Piedmont EMC, and we have submitted an <br />application to construct a 350 -foot tower at our property on 2500 Highway 86 South. The <br />reason we want to construct a taller tower is to improve our radio communication in our <br />service territory. We have certain areas with our present radio system that we don't have <br />good coverage, and this tower is part of the three towers within our service territory. <br />There is one here in Hillsborough, we also have a tower that we are wanting to construct <br />in Caswell County along Highway 62, and then another tower in Person County on <br />Highway 158: This will greatly improve our radio communications in our entire service <br />territory. What it will also allow us to do is to have three towers, and we have to have a <br />trump system, so we have to have all three towers tied together. When we are in one <br />area of the system, I can talk to someone in another area of the system just like we're <br />side by side. What it does also is allow us to do data transfer between our three offices <br />that we have-in our service territory. At this point, if you have any questions, I'm willing to <br />answer them, or.if you want me to talk more about the technology, I'll go into that. <br />Jay Bryan: Are there any questions frorri the Commissioners? None. Are there any <br />questions from the Planning Board? <br />Robin Blanton: The tower is 320 feet and then there will be a 30 -foot high antenna on <br />top of the tower so that it brings up to a 350 -foot height. <br />Judith Wegner: Could you speak to the issue of the migratory birds, and if this is <br />appropriate, and also about any adverse affects on people living nearby. <br />Robin Blanton: We have looked at migratory birds patterns in this area, and from what <br />we have found and also from the County staff, we haven't found any migratory bird <br />patterns that would be affected by this. With our current tower, we have not seen any <br />amount of birds under that existing tower. It is another 200 feet high. <br />Judith Wegner: From. what I understand from the materials, that by having a white rather <br />than a red light, that makes a difference in terms of the birds. <br />Robin Blanton:.The prevailing philosophy right now is with the white lights on top of the <br />towers, birds are less mesmerized by the flashing white light than they are the red light. <br />We are trying to do that. One thing that would help with this tower is, it is a self - <br />supporting tower, so there will be no guide wires coming down from it, which are much <br />more difficult to see. This should also help with the migratory bird patterns. <br />Judith Wegner: Are there'any adverse affects on the people living within the radius. Your - <br />materials talk about trying to shield visibility and things of that sort, but are there any <br />other ways in which the emissions or the electronic transactions will make a difference. <br />Robin Blanton: We will continue.... what we are doing is we are using basically the same <br />frequencies that we have for our current radio system, which is the 150 megahertz <br />range. There have been no studies suggesting that there are adverse health affects in <br />those frequencies. <br />Judith Wegner: And people who live further away, since it's a larger height, will this <br />affect them? <br />Robin Blanton: One of the things that we are able to do by having three towers up is to <br />minimize.the.adverse health affect, because it is a weaker signal. But because we have <br />three towers, we get better coverage instead of running off one tower. <br />Jay Bryan: Any other questions by the Planning Board? Thank you sir. <br />Commissioner Carey: I was looking at the balloon tether report, and I was looking for <br />some substance in it, but I saw one of these pictures. Tell me.did you hear anything from <br />anybody about the balloon tether test and what is the objective of the balloon tether test. <br />Robin Blanton: The reason for the balloon test is to allow people to see how tall the <br />tower is supposed to be. We sent out letters to the public, I want to say it's within a 500 - <br />foot radius of our property, announcing the date of the test, so that people would be <br />aware of when the test was done: Piedmont did not get any adverse comments on the <br />