News-Register, January 15, 2008
“Technicians took Yamhill County's new emergency radio system for a two-hour test drive Friday and officials said it passed with flying colors.
The morning test, conducted at the county's Lafayette Avenue radio shop by personnel from AdComm Engineering Inc., was aimed at determining whether each of the system's 20 base stations, perched atop towers and other tall structures around the county - could both receive and send a signal.
Project Manager Murray Paolo, present at the test, said he was braced for a few glitches. He termed himself "tickled pink" when a technician wielding a hand-held radio was able to contact every single station.
"This is a major milestone for us," Paolo told the Yamhill County commissioners Monday afternoon. "The whole system works as designed and engineered."
Paolo took charge of the project in early 2006, after the county had suffered through years of false starts at the hands of a consultant who was eventually fired. He has been able to deliver increasingly positive reports to the commissioners since AdComm was brought on board last year.
While Paolo's previous messages had amounted to, "We're making real progress," Monday's amounted to, "It works." That's something he'd never been able to claim before. “