By Logan Braman

The sunny weather on the build site for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” means Day Six is full of all kinds of projects. Workers and volunteers are putting the finishing touches on the house, a windmill is being installed and landscapers are standing by to start work on the outside of the home. The past week’s activities have all centered on one thing; communication.

Sam Kincaid, systems engineer with ERS Data Solutions Group, has been on-site since Day One. Kincaid and his company are responsible for making sure everyone from the build team is in constant contact via two-way radios and wireless Internet connections. ERS also worked on making communication happen on an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” build in Indianapolis in March. Kincaid said this project has included obstacles he hasn’t encountered in the past.

“It posed unique challenges for us, as opposed to the previous event that we helped out on that was in downtown Indianapolis with plenty of services,” Kincaid said. “Now, we’re in the middle of a bean field with no services. Although it posed a challenge, it wasn’t impossible.”

Kincaid’s first job was to make sure Hallmark Homes could communicate via two-way radios at all times. Radio contact was required on Day One, so Kincaid and his team installed a Motorola MotoTURBO system on site. The set-up includes a transmitter that was placed on top of a cherry-picker on site that is high enough to allow radio contact in a seven-mile radius. Kincaid said wireless Internet was the next project on the list.

“Because this is our second event we’ve done for Extreme Makeover, we had previous experience,” he said. “They gave us this area to come out here and do an initial survey. There’s no cell signals, no cell phone usage at all out here. It was very difficult to find even a local Internet service provider that had coverage out here. So from the standpoint of voice communications and data communications, this is no-man’s land.”

According to Kincaid, many of the obstacles he’s encountered are because of the nearby Grissom Air Force Base. According to the base’s Web site, the area was a fully operational Air Force base until 1994. Kincaid said the radio availability in the area is a result of the historical function of the base.

“Grissom, strategically, used to be a very important asset and it still continues today,” he said. “During the Cold War, there was a lot of activity here and this whole area was considered a radio frequency no-man’s land because of everything that went on that Grissom was associated with.”

Everything was installed by noon on the second day and Kincaid said things have been going well since then. The biggest problem so far was a generator that ran out of gas earlier today. Hallmark is using 20 two-way radios and 3 wireless Internet stations to stay in constant contact with each other. Kincaid said the communication is essential to making sure the build team meets its deadline.

“When the builder is coming down to this 106-hour deadline that they have to build the project, it’s all about making the builders as efficient as possible,” Kincaid said. “So if they can look at schematics or blueprints, make changes over the Internet at the home office without having to run people back and forth, order new things or access new things. Anything that makes them more efficient and speeds them up toward deadline is a wanted thing. And that’s where bringing wireless data into these projects really helps them out in making things more efficient.”

The wireless network set-up also provides a good training opportunity for Kincaid and his team. A lot of the work ERS does on a regular basis involves public safety organizations that need immediate wireless connectivity in an emergency. During an emergency, the company is often asked to set up wireless infrastructures, or remote incident command posts, similar to the system on the build site.

“We like doing these events because we like being involved in the process and helping the families out,” Kincaid said. “We also get a benefit from it from us being able to rehearse and practice what we normally do as a company in these kind of environments without the real danger being involved.”

The systems have been set up and fully operational for a few days now, but Kincaid or another worker from ERS will stay on-site to ensure any problems are dealt with quickly. Kincaid said he hasn’t directly helped in building the Cowan-Brown family’s new home but he might consider volunteering in the future.

“It would be a lot less stressful to just have a hammer and nails,” he said. “The stress in what we do in this situation is that everything for this builder to make this 106-hour deadline is based on communication. He’s got to be able to communicate. If communication breaks down he can’t get a hold of the people he needs to go to.”