New Smiley radio tower up and running

The new Gonzales County radio tower in Smiley is online and has been getting rave reviews from law enforcement officials.

The 300-foot guyed radio tower was built at a cost of $554,139.10 and was funded by a 2017 General Land Office (GLO) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Disaster Recovery (DR) grant awarded to the county in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Completion took nine months from March to November.

The new tower is located at 600 Finch St., Smiley, and now will allow law enforcement to be anywhere in the southern or western end of Gonzales County — and beyond — and still be able to communicate with Gonzales County dispatch or their fellow officers.

“We did some testing down south and went all the way down to the DeWitt County line and were able to hit it fine back down there,” said Gonzales County Attorney’s chief investigator John Brumme, who helped the county conduct radio testing of the new tower. “Off US 87, we went on 108 South about 15 miles in DeWitt County and wew able to hit it okay there with no problem.”

Brumme said he was also able to use a handheld radio in Belmont, Gonzales and even Seguin and still reach another person through the Smiley tower and was able to hit the tower through a mobile unit in San Antonio last week as well.

“So far, it’s working excellent,” Brumme said.

Anita Scoggins, a representative from Victoria Communications Systems (VCS), which installed the tower, said site prep at the tower should be completed by the end of this week.