Midland County’s Newest Radio Tower Enhancing Regional Communications

The Midland County Public Safety Radio Project has unveiled its latest innovation to help boost communication for law enforcement and first responders within the Permian Basin.

Justin Stephenson, project infrastructure administrator for Midland County, thanked everyone for attending the ribbon-cutting last week at the Greenwood Radio Tower site.

“Most everyone here has had a part in the success of our project, and we’re truly grateful for all your partnership, support, generosity and the different ways that you contributed,” Stephenson said. “Our radio system has been a work in progress for a little over five years now, and the final day arrived ... we went live on the air on Aug. 27 with the Midland County radio system.”

Stephenson said the Motorola system, with the addition of three radio towers in south Midland, will provide more capabilities than the Permian Basin has had before.

Midland County Commissioner Luis Sanchez said he was excited to see the radio tower project finally come to fruition. He said most of the project's funding was via a federal grant called the COPS grant.

Additionally, Stephenson said Midland County had partnered with some state agencies to add communication equipment to their towers and upgrade existing sites.

“We started out over five years ago assessing our current infrastructure, and we realized that we needed to do some major upgrades,” Stephenson explained. “We had several coverage gaps throughout the county. Officers didn’t have communications, and then we had a need for newer infrastructure. That conversation led us to what we have today. We’ve built three new radio towers, one of which we are here standing on today, and two other towers.”

Another feature of the upgrades, Stephenson said, is working with a software vendor to get the mapping component upgraded, which he called another significant improvement.

The Midland County Public Safety Radio Project initiative is a collaborative effort involving local and state agencies, including the city of Midland, city of Odessa, Ector County and Petro Communications.

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