03-24-1999 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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U S WEST Wireless, L.L.C. 426 North Fairview, Room 101 St. Paul, MN 55104 Memo To: Little Canada Planning Commission From: Dan Weisenburger CC: Kenneth Nielsen, Pat Conlin Date: 03/11/99 Re: Little Canada — U.S. West Wireless — Citgo Antenna Tower • Liz` F life's better here US West Wireless, LLC has searched extensively in the area in and around Little Canada for a suitable site for a new wireless communication tower. US West Wireless Advanced PCS service uses radio frequencies centered around 1.9 Gigahertz. The base stations emit a power level of approximately 0.3 -watt per served subscriber. The handheld subscriber units typically use less than 0.3 -watt. With the high frequency and low power levels used, a typical base station has a serving radius of approximately 0.5 -mile. This distance can vary with terrain, vegetation and population density. Our Advanced PCS uses a single channel for all users of a base station and each base station is on the same channel. Because of this channel re -use, US West towers are kept to the minimum height necessary to support communications. We have identified an area bounded by Hwy 36 to the south, 1-694 to the north, I -35E on the east and Rice St. on the west as needing signal level enhancement. At this time all existing sites are well over a mile apart and exceed our 0.5 -mile site radius. The Citgo location relieves this condition. Various site candidates have been reviewed including but not limited to the Little Canada water tank and the Little Canada Fire Department in the interest of co- locating in accordance with the city ordinance. The water tank is far removed from the planned search area and is also nearer to an existing site in Vadnais Heights. To achieve the height necessary for coverage of our determined search area a base station at the water tank would become an interferer to our existing system as it is currently designed. Consideration was also given to the Little Canada Fire Department located across the street from the Citgo. This is a two - story building and for us to use this location will require a monopole support for our antenna. The height of a monopole would have to be determined empirically and may result in a taller structure because of variations of the ground elevations. The visual impact (attached rendering) was such that we have looked at other alternatives. USA OCIC ' 30USC300 Proud Sponsor Page 50