SPEAKER_00 0:07

And welcome, welcome everyone. You're listening to iTalk 1067 FM, the voice of the mountain. I'm your host, Janine Ford. So glad you're only with us this afternoon. I have Engineer Matt here with the Green Peaks. What is it, Matt?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Green's Peak Users Association.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Green Peak Users Association. And Matt's an engineer, um, been there, done that all over the place in engineering, and he's a built a lot of radio stations in my day. Built a lot of radio stations. He knows all the parts that we have here at the radio station. I'm clueless. I just know which buttons I'm supposed to push. So Engineer Matt, um, 25 years of experience designing, deploying, maintaining uh all sorts of uh radio stations, uh TV stations, you name it, he can he can handle it. So he's up on Greenspe. How many times how many times did you guess that you've been up on top of Greenspeak?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Oh God, if I were to guess, I would every time I'd be a millionaire. Too many times. Too many times. It's a beautiful place, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

It's gorgeous. How how about in the winter when if we're you have a lot of snow?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

We have a cool little tool called a snow cat. So we c we take the snow cat up to the mountain, and uh it's a little slow, but you know, it's a nice, it's a nice slow drive. You take things in, you're able to see the trees, and an occasional bear or some wildlife comes prancing around wondering, what are you doing up here?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, exactly. That's neat. You've probably seen a lot of things. Okay, so in communications, and you're in communications, you're in to talk today about some concerns you have over uh basically these gigantic wind turbines. Are you concerned about them?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I think yeah, we there is a uh a concern. Um, you know, a lot of these, I'm gonna refer to them as NGOs that pay for these these uh these studies. And obviously, in my opinion, uh speaking for myself, I find these uh studies very, very biased. Um do they have grains of truth in them? Yes, they do. But there's a lot of um there's a lot of uh aspects of these studies that they they say, look over here, but don't look over here. There's little subtle things like for example, um can radio waves be affected by these wind turbines? Yes, under what we would say microwaves would be affected in the near field. And when I say the near field, I'm talking about, say, a mile to three miles from a wind turbine. Outside of that, uh VHF and UHF frequencies tend to not be bothered. But if you would the best analogy I can think of when you're up close and you you you have these wind turbines going around, these are made, have got metal in them. They've got you know carbon fiber, they've metal particulates and things like that. Um and they do bounce radio waves. They will um deflect them and and um create what's called what we call um in radio um multipath. So you have a if I can uh uh uh describe it as think about it like a a mirror. So you have a a wind turbine, but these are like mirrors. So you have and you're trying to receive an image. So when you're in the near what I call the what we call the near field, that image gets distorted. So that would manifest itself in s now modern digital radio systems used by police and fire as um as digital uh delay, digital distortion delay. So the the policemen or the firemen's digital radio, even ham radios will get um what we call robotic sounding. The audio will be distorted to the point where in some cases um it's very hard to make out what the other party is receiving. Now, an analog is a little bit more forgiving. It would just manifest itself as noise. So on an analog radio, digital radio is going to be different. So we call it uh time delay interference. Um without getting uh down a rabbit hole of engineering stuff. It is a f there there is a noticeable effect in the near field, but again, out further from the wind turbines, you don't really see this. But what is really affected is microwave paths off of Green's Peak. There's a few um users up on Green's Peak that do have microwave paths that do go through the project area. Those microwave paths, yes, those could be mitigated. We just won't put a turbine over here, and it's it's so they can mitigate it. But microwaves are very much affected by um these rotating metallic reflectors.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Oh, yeah, okay. So um who should be most concerned? Would it be mostly fire and police or that to be watching these? And and as they're putting the wind turbines, do you know who like the the project managers, the people that are building these, are they getting in touch with engineers locally like yourself?

SPEAKER_01 5:01

And are they saying that we have not been contacted?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Not been contacted at all, yeah. And so there's a lot of are there other engineers do you know that are concerned a little bit about some of these or asking questions? And some of these, these are gonna be the tallest they're saying that they've had. Um area is supposed to be 780 feet, and then the blades reach higher. And a lot of them are saying that, oh, there's gonna be a learning curve. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

So that's a reason why we really need to demand baseline study. I'm not saying don't go with it. I personally I think they're ugly. I I think technology with small-scale nuclear, that makes more sense. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yes. Um but looking at this unbiasedly, we we should really have a true, unbiased engineering consulting firm come in and do an evaluation across all frequency bands.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Um and maybe they include some local engineers and different things, I mean, include them in the talk because I noticed these NGOs and things, they hire, like you say, these specific, they're paying for it. And then the the results look a lot like they paid for it.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Well, yeah, I mean a per a perfect example is there is a a company that begins with an M and ends with an A, and uh was involved with the creation of cellular phones, and they uh paid for a medical study. And to they didn't want the C word used in the same sentences as cell phone. And a lot of that medical a lot of that medical research was squelched. They it was, yeah, no, nothing to see. Again, nothing to see here.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, yeah. So that's what we hear a lot of and until we can't like reach out to each other. So so like maybe police and fire could say, hey guys, let's make sure that our stuff is going to be heard and we're not gonna be distorted. Maybe some groups like that could reach out and say, we need to make sure that we're okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

I think police and public safety should have a place at the table. And again, you know, from my background, the we do see a an effect in the near field.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

And when you say near field, uh close to the w it's close to the wind turbines, right? So if you're close to the turbines, so if we have a ton of turbines up here, we could have a lot of near-fields.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

You'll have a lot of multipath created. So that's again, think about it as a signal emitting off of Green's Peak or Sierra Montosa, hitting these blades and being reflected in multiple different directions.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Different directions, but having them bouncing all over the place. And with the projects, approximately, we heard from uh a local the government uh representative for real estate thing that's they're saying that this is going to be, this is basically proposed to be the largest wind turbine and solar farms in the region in our area. And as many as, like we're counting on some of the things, trying to do the math, about 8,500 wind turbines, more going in. And that's a lot, you know. So so that near field could be a pretty big near field, right? Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

And the further you get away, the less, you know, at VHF and UHF frequencies, it's it's less noticeable. But um again, the near field, if there is a a deputy that's out in that area that's within Hill, is could very likely his or her communications can be affected. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Right. So if somebody is like running down Interstate 40, but there's a bunch of wind turbines between he and Green's Peak, that could be affected too, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Not to not to the scale of as being right in the wind turbine. You really need to be on you know, wi again, within that, you know, one and a half, three mile, even maybe four mile of the wind turbine. Of the wind turbine. Okay. But what really is is affected is AM broadcast facilities. Thing is, where's there there's really no I think there's one station out in s in um Springerville, just uh uh an AM radio station out there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

We have an AM and so does White Mountain Radio too. Yeah, we each have AMs. And yeah, ours is in Springerville, I believe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

And so that would that would that would cause um a parasit that the tower, the wind tower, to an AM signal would be a parasitic effect. So it would act as a parasitic antenna. In other words, when we um when an AM station, um a multi-tower AM station, they have things called patterns. And these patterns are directed in time of day, um daytime pattern, nighttime pattern. And what they do is that they detune various say if you have a six-tower array, you'll detune maybe two of the towers to create the pattern that you want. Well, if you have all these wind turbines out there, that's gonna create one heck of a pattern. It's gonna distort the pattern to the point where that AM broadcaster would be in violation with the FCC because their um signal is not going where it's intended to go. Oh, yeah. So it causes problems. But I don't I you know unless there's you know, we have like um um KTN, the Navajo Nation Station, that's a ways away. But if you had something like KTNN, they would be that would uh really affect them. Because I believe they're only a two-tower array out there, and if you put that in a f you start popping up wind turbines, that's gonna significantly hamper their signal.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Right. And I believe there's an AM station right in Holbrook. It's right near the you know, a lot of these that are going in, so that could be interesting too. But there's um so uh that that's the thing is that all of these providers, these different radio stations, all of them really need to take a close look. And right now, guys, these are all in play. And I know I've been talking to there's another layer is that fire, like fire officials, for instance, you you look at some of this, there's a lot of this that everybody's asking questions about. Gosh, we have no fire suppression for these. We have no hazmat suppression. We have nothing to fight any fires that these cause. Especially like if there's a lithium battery fire, there's there's nobody to fight it. And there's no and in Texas, they are told, oh, let it burn. And we're in a wildfire, you know, area. So there's a lot of problems in, you know. Now you personally are are you worried about this?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah. Um more so I mean out there, I mean, it's a lot of scrubland. I think the fire, I don't know, I'm not a fireman, I don't know about fire, anything but fire mitigation, other than, you know, don't burn the forest down when we're on greens. But um yeah, I'm not I do know that I have seen um uh friends of mine, other engineers, send me, you know, we send these uh memes back and forth of wind turbines that have caught on fire that have collapsed, and it's and this is green energy. Yeah, don't know about that.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

It's not green. No. It's anything but that's that's I know I love that. I've said that too. It's anything but green, especially when you're looking at the four to five thousand tons of rusting rebar steel and junk that's left in the ground for time and all eternity, you know. It's just sad.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Well, I know this doesn't have anything really to do, you know, with the radio side, but uh and communications. But my concern would be is um what are you doing about the water table?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Very good. Yeah. I mean, we've got the beautiful Coconino aquifer, and we have springs that go all out there, springs. We it there the water level folks, as you get out toward in, there's areas in Springerville in a year that you have a well at 60 feet and there's springs. That means sh the Coconut aquifer comes up and it's shallow. And picture 4,000 to 5,000 a cancerous tumor in the ground and all that stuff, leaching out the lime, what is it, lime and and concrete and rusting rebar and all this stuff for ancient it just blows my mind that they just could and then if you have a lithium battery fire and say somebody sprays water on it, then all the toxins go right into the water. Yeah. So there's a lot of scary things to consider. And you know, like you say, I I think you bring up an interesting point where m all the research that they'll use, they'll use their immediate and they use the research that they want to see. But the research that we've gotten from O Oklahoma and Texas was pretty horrifying. And those are the little tiny wind turbines, you know, and they're still standing there rotting and the people's property values tanked by 50 percent out there, but they don't use any of that.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

I think uh another one you can look at is the um folks in California with the banner um the banner grade going into um uh Palm Springs. There's a huge wind farm out there, and it was probably I would say 60 percent are not even used. It makes no sense. I mean this.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

They stand there broken and dead. And and the saddest part of all of this, which um I've been talking about a lot, and it just it just i is so frustrating, is a mini nuclear takes up five acres of land, folks, and we're within 10 years of a mini nuclear. We just need a bridge. And the minute a mini nuclear appears, like if it's in St. John's, all of these are obsolete. Yeah. But do you know that they put them in? The the scam is they can get them in for the ninety-eight billion that's sitting there, and then they don't even ever have to use them. But they won't be removed.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Well, it's it's you know, as I as we talked about, you know, my my background actually, my education's in uh in applied and high energy physics, um not so much in radio, that was my college job, was jumping in and out of fire trucks and cop cars and to pay for college. But the when we talk small-scale nuclear, modern nuclear, it's much cleaner than the stuff that we were dealing with in the 70s. It's much cleaner. Uh it's a lot more efficient. Um we don't have the pollution issues. Um, you know, when you had a three-mile melt. Yeah. You s and in that's truly clean energy. I I this I to me the efficiency of these things when I look at them, um, they're inefficient. They're very, very inefficient. For the cost that it takes to maintain them, the energy output is nowhere near the the headbanging that you do and the mashing of teeth to get these things put in, to do the construction, to maintain them. And they say, oh, we're going to bring in jobs. Yeah, I see a team of twelve. How can that sustain a community? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Don't give me the thing. And most of them are from out of state, those twelve. They'll bring their own people in. And it's foreign companies building this so they can strategically bankrupt within a couple years and run away. And nobody, our counties aren't they're putting not putting anybody on the contracts. Yeah. And the energy companies, no one's on the contracts. Follow the money. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Just uh just to follow the money. And you know, it's you know, when I heard about this, you know, five years ago, I'm like, uh, it sounds like an NGO grift.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yes, NGO grift. Very good. Yep. And and it's really sad that our our two counties have kind of oh, we have no authority, we have no authority. But seven other counties put in some protections. Seven other counties did like Coachists has really nice ones, and they haven't been sued, and they did a really good job. And that's the only thing that our the citizens had put in an ordinance to try try to push for, you know, that we're try to get going. But there's all sorts of things that are trying to be done, but it's an uphill battle now that these things have kind of run away, you know, and so it's kind of a hard thing now. But but it's something to think about. Anything else you want to add as far as the your concerns about our communication here on the mountain with all these wind turbines?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

I think it's you know, as far as um cellular phones, microwave communications, yeah, I think that's something to look at. But I think doing a comprehensive baseline study that needs to be done, again, putting coming from the you know, not from the from a point of not being against it or for it, but as truly is an engineer, let's look at this and let's do a true baseline, unbiased study. Not a study that came from, hey, look, Fountain Wind Project company, oh, they paid for this. Just like I go back to that company, begins with an M and ends with an A and says, yeah, we don't want to do let's do it, let's really do it. I would like to see this. I would like to see, prove me wrong. Yeah, it's like I would like to be, you know, I would like to see, and I I believe that we always learn something, and I think a good baseline, non-biased study, even if the citizenry is has to chip in for this. Let's actually see what this does. Um but you know, the ph the science is that, yeah, uh we do know for a fact that television, digital television signals do are affected, the new digital television signals. Uh so if you are casting a DTV signal across the wind project, it will significantly um hamper uh reception.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Ooh, that's not good.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

So but who but here's the other thing though, realistically, who's watching over the RTV? People are watching stuff on YouTube. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

You know, and so satellite, like if you have Starlink, you'll be okay, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yeah, Starlink's not going to be affected. Um some people say, well, potential impact depends upon, let's see, a 60 arc of 65 miles encompasses a station, could have, and they even stated here in their report, could have impacts. And this is satellite and earth stations. Um and their their study radius is out to 65 miles for this one. Um, and broadcast facilities, definitely in the near field, up to about two miles or so that would be affected. And TD broadcast facilities will be affected.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

And we only have a 720-foot setback that we've been given by our Board of Supervisors, 720 feet from the wind turbines. So that could affect a lot of people's signals. That's definitely near field, right? 720 feet? Yes. Oh well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yes, yeah. That's very much. Um microwave and cellular, you know, we have a thing in there. Um we use a term called the Frisnel zones. And the Frisel z Frisnel zone, think about it like a as an oblong, like a football that's in three-dimension and from um transmit to receive. That will be definitely affected by this. If anyone's path goes through a wind farm, yeah, you're gonna lose your data connection. You're gonna lose your path. So that needs to be, you know, that that needs to be considered. But again, let's let's do a true baseline study. You know, if they say, well, no.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

And here's the big thing. Do the big NGOs or our county do they care? You know, it's kind of like are they just gonna put them all in? People will lose their say, sorry, that's just you're gonna have to look at this and look at that and look and just give people to run around and then they'll move away. That's what we've seen in some areas. People just have to move away.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

I've got friends that say that out there um uh be out by Sierra Montosa, they put them in, she's gonna move. Yeah. Just because of, you know, effects and noise and the whoosh-whoosh and the and the red light blinking on that.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah. Um that's what we're seeing is that yeah, a lot of places are like ghost towns that do they just put a tonnies in the people they and I've I've heard people say, Oh, they'll eventually move off. Okay. That's a nice thought.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

I believe that the you know, I again I'm going back, let's do a study. Let's really have let's do a fair study, not hey, we paid for this engineering company to come in. They write the report as they see to their favor. No, let's actually do this. Prove me wrong on a few on these things. Does a wind farm actually produce uh time delay interference for digital public safety radios? Prove me wrong. I will accept. If I'm wrong, hey, I'll go on, I'll go online. But yeah, you know, I've been at this game too long. You know, I've been up here, you know, came over from Yuma and been up here 17 years, and I love this county. I and I really, really want to see the right thing done, and I think we can do a lot better and these big obelisks and just I don't think they're it.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Oh, guys, that's oh that was awesome. Engineer Matt, let's just do a study. Let's look at the study. Yeah. It's easy.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

I mean, just have a good, you know, even maybe two.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Not too much to ask for.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Yeah. Engineer Matt, we so appreciate you. Good, good stuff. I really like that. And we haven't heard from this aspect of it, you know. So that's good. Thank you so much. Come in anytime. Tell me what's in my radio station. Okay. All right, Engineer Matt talking about the wind turbines and the possible effects. Now we need to do a study. Everyone, keep it right here. Item 1067 FM, the voice of the mountain.