Pequot firefighters' paging system not working properly
For the past three weeks, Pequot Lakes firefighters have been operating in a sort of radio silence.
When Crosslake Communications installed a new radio tower in Crosslake, the antenna that was to be covering Pequot Lakes wasn't pointed the correct way, said Pequot Lakes Fire Chief Tom Nelson.
"It was on the northeast side of the tower, opposite of us," Nelson said, and because of that Pequot Lakes firefighters pagers weren't working properly, if at all. "The farther east you go, like in Breezy Point, we'd get some pages, but farther west, like Pequot Lakes or farther, we don't get them at all."
But that hasn't meant that Pequot Lakes firefighters couldn't be paged out to emergencies, said firefighter Dan Loven. If a fire call was sent to the Crow Wing County emergency dispatch center, dispatchers made sure to page out surrounding fire departments for mutual aid and a phone tree was set up within the department to notify firefighters.
"We made sure we were covered," Loven said.
The tower that handles the antenna for the Pequot Lakes Fire Department also handles antennae for other fire departments, including Ideal and Crosslake. Nelson said he has been in discussions with Crosslake Communications, and he hopes the antenna will be fixed today or Monday.
MATT ERICKSON can be reached at matt.erickson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5857.