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<br />right. I welcome all of you tonight far this public hearing. Who is here on behalf of the <br />applicant? State your name please far the record. <br />Robin Blanton: Good evening, I'm Robin Blanton with Piedmont EMC, and as you are <br />aware, we have submitted an application to construct a 350-foot tower, and that would be the <br />top of the antenna height on the tower. <br />Geaf Gledhill: Excuse me. I think that the testimony that this witness is likely to be <br />next as to the legislative and the special use permit. I think you have to swear in and let him <br />start over again. <br />At this time, the Clerk swore in all speakers to this item. <br />Robin Blanton: Again, I'm Robin Blanton with Piedmont EMC, and we have submitted <br />an 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 service <br />territory. We have certain areas with our present radio system that we don't have good <br />coverage, and this tower is part of the three towers within our service territory. There is one <br />here in Hillsborough, we also have a tower that we are wanting to construct in Caswell County <br />along Highway 62, and then another tower in Person County on Highway 158. This will greatly <br />improve our radio communications in our entire service territory. What it will also allow us to do <br />is to have three towers, and we have to have a trump system, so we have to have all three <br />towers tied together. When we are in one area of the system, I can talk to someone in another <br />area of the system just like we're side by side. What it does also is allow us to da data transfer <br />between our three offices that we have in our service territory. At this point, if you have any <br />questions, I'm willing to answer them, or if you want me to talk more about the technology, I'll go <br />into that. <br />Jay Bryan: Are there any questions from the Commissioners? 1ltone. 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 patterns that <br />would be affected by this. With our current tower, we have not seen any amount of birds under <br />that existing tower. It is another 200 feet high. <br />Judith Wegner: From what I understand from the materials, that by having a white <br />rather than a red light, that makes a difference in terms of the birds. <br />Rabin Blanton: The prevailing philosophy right now is with the white lights on tap of the <br />towers, birds are less mesmerized by the flashing white light than they are the red light. We are <br />trying to do that. One thing that would help with this tower is, it is aself-supporting tower, so <br />there will be no guide wires coming down from it, which are much more difficult to see. This <br />should also help with the migratory bird patterns. <br />Judith Wegner: Are there any adverse affects on the people living within the radius. <br />Your materials talk about trying to shield visibility and things of that sort, but are there any other <br />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 <br />same frequencies that we have for our current radio system, which is the 150 megahertz range. <br />There have been no studies suggesting that there are adverse health affects in those <br />frequencies. <br />Judith Wegner: And people who live further away, since it's a larger height, will this <br />affect them? <br />