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New radio tower worth
the wait
10/2/2006 6:00 PM
(WROC-TV)
New radio tower worth the wait
There's a stick of steel now keeping boaters
safer as they ply the waters of Lake Ontario.
News 8 Now's Dave McKinley reports on how it
took a decade and a half of perseverance, to
make it so.
To most it appears as nothing more than a
60-foot stick of steel, standing along a lonely
stretch of Lake Ontario shoreline. But for
mariners, it is the long sought after last link
in communicating between Coast Guard stations in
Buffalo and Rochester. Because for the longest
time, the lack of something like it, left
boaters in potentially dire straights, should
they get in trouble in the areas north of Devils
Nose in Hamlin Beach State Park.
"It was very iffy if a boater got in trouble in
that area whether they could reach help either
from Buffalo or the station Rochester from their
boat radio," says Ann Roller of the US Coast
Guard Auxiliary.
Despite the apparent need, the Coast Guard was
unable to rectify the situation.
"They have a limited budget, it's maybe
one-tenth what other military has. They have so
many other needs that a radio tower on the
shores of Lake Ontario doesn't rank up as high
as national security," says Roller.
So members of the Hamlin Flotilla of the Us
Coast Guard Auxiliary decided they'd do
something about it.
"Well, we all come from different backgrounds,
we're a pretty diverse group," says Peter Urgola
of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary.
So they scrounged parts:
"The tower itself, the wiring the coupling,"
says Roller.
And raised the money, and raised the tower,
themselves.
"And they kept pushing year after year and one
little thing would get done one year and then
they'd push again and another thing would get
done the next year," says Roller.
It took them 15 years but, by golly, they got it
done.
"Slow but sure, like the tortoise!" says Roller.
So perhaps this is indeed more than a tower of
steel...it could well be a monument of sorts, to
a dedicated group of volunteers who come
heck--or high water--were determined to put
something back in to the community.
"And I think for the most part that's the
motivation for all the folks that ultimately
join the auxiliary, is to put something back
into the community," says Urgola.
Most boaters have cell phones, but the coast
guard auxiliary says they can't replace ship to
shore radios. For one thing, cell phones are
iffy once you're out on the lake, and even you
can place a call- it only reaches one party,
whereas an S.O.S. put out over a radio frequency
could reach any number of other boaters--or
auxiliary members who may be listening in from
shore.
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The United States Coast Guard
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