Supervisors in Prince Edward have agreed to purchase a new repeater for the county’s law enforcement communications system, which is set to eliminate dead zones that deputies encounter across the county.

The board of supervisors agreed to spend $12,960 in local money from the county’s forfeited asset fund for the repeater, which will be co-located on the state police’s STARS tower on Leigh Mountain. Additional funding for the project is expected to come from state compensation board.

The board also agreed to ask the Federal Communications Commission for an additional frequency for communicating with each other and the sheriff’s office, according to Maj. David Wilmoth of the county sheriff’s office.

The new channel is needed to enable the proposed repeater.

“The FCC, they had some measures that they instituted over a period of time … It cut our radio coverage to a huge deficit,” Wilmoth said, “to where it’s creating some severe public safety issues with officer safety and for the public as well. …”

He said often times, deputies have a difficult time communicating with the sheriff’s office dispatch center.

“Putting (the repeater) to a higher elevation … (will help) fix this problem,” he said.

He said working with the county and state will help the sheriff’s office get its biggest bank for its buck.

“It would improve the coverage of the county,” Wilmoth said. “It would do a significant improvement to what we have now … It’s going to close the deficit that we have right now significantly. Of course, there will always be certain spots. It’s going to vastly improve our communications greatly to what we have right now.”

Once up and running, the Leigh Mountain repeater will be the only one on the system.

“They also authorized a request for (a) new public safety frequency through the FCC,” County Administrator Wade Bartlett said.

“So the county will get a frequency.”

“It’ll provide better coverage,” he said of the new repeater. “Right now, we have a lot of dead zones in the county, which are a danger to our sheriff’s department.”

According to county documents, the repeater is expected to be operational by September.