WATSON — Lewis County's main emergency radio tower in Crystal Dale is back up but likely won't be fully operational for at least a couple of weeks.

"We are ahead of schedule from what we originally thought," county Emergency Services Director James M. Martin said.

Workers from JPJ Electronic Communications Inc., Yorkville, and Aerial Erectors, Lowville, on Monday morning installed antennas on and erected a 180-foot-tall tower at the former tower site off Erie Canal Road in the town of Watson.

Then, on Tuesday, JPJ officials set up a radio receiver at the Public Safety Building in Lowville as a temporary way to allow local law enforcement — on high-band frequencies — to utilize the new tower for improved communication, Mr. Martin said.

Microwave dishes must still be installed and properly aligned with the PSB and the county's other two radio towers near Copenhagen and Constableville before the new tower becomes fully operational, he said.

"That's going to take them some time to get done," Mr. Martin said.

While the project could be completed by Thanksgiving, weather will be a huge factor, particularly if rain or sleet is in the forecast, the emergency services director said.

"They'd rather be in the middle of a snowstorm than in the middle of a sleet storm," he said.

A county highway worker was clearing brush from around the old tower Sept. 16 when a guy-wire caught on his tractor's exhaust pipe, causing the wire to snap and the tower to bend and twist. It was felled the next day by releasing a few of the other wires.

County officials decided to put up a free-standing tower with a concrete base, rather than another one requiring guy-wires to anchor it, because it would require less maintenance and be more stable. Much of the replacement costs are being covered by insurance.

Since the Crystal Dale tower went down, radio equipment mounted on the WWTI television tower outside of Copenhagen, which regularly covers only the northern and western parts of the county, has been the county's main emergency transmitter.

While fire and emergency services are still exclusively using the backup system, police officers having more dependable radio service is a huge improvement, Mr. Martin said.

"It was a dangerous situation," he said.

The county has also contracted with JPJ to conduct a $60,000 upgrade of its emergency radio system, including the installation of new equipment at its three towers. That will be done in conjunction with the work at Crystal Dale.

When completed, the upgrade is to boost the system's output from 100 watts to 300 watts, Mr. Martin said. The county has already received Federal Communications Commission approval for increased output at the Smith Road tower near Constableville but has yet to hear back on the status of the other two towers, he said.

The planned upgrade should improve countywide communication, particularly for emergency pagers, Mr. Martin said.

"We're not saying it's going to be 100 percent," he said. "But the majority of them should trip when we get the new system up and running."