Anyone who has ever lost a cell phone signal while in a residence hall has some idea of the frustration Gilbert Sebenste had been feeling – to a degree.

Sebenste, NIU’s staff meteorologist, noticed a disturbing lack of National Weather Service network radio signals in DeKalb County.

However, thanks to Sebenste and the NWS, DeKalb now receives a clear signal from an on-campus emergency radio. The radio is a critical first alert of severe weather heading toward the county.

“The situation was that reception was fair to poor in certain portions of the campus where elevation was lowest,” he said. “We definitely had serious problems getting no weather radio reception in places like the Music Building and Engineering Building.”

The lack of signal spured Sebenste to act.

“I tried to have the National Weather Service move a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] weather radio station closer to us, but after they did some checking into it, it was determined that the closer station wouldn’t help us, because we are in a river valley and the signal still would be blocked,” he said. “So a process began to write a proposal to the NWS to a get a weather radio station in DeKalb. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen overnight.”

Eventually, it did happen. NIU provided the space for a radio system that was installed on Grant D-Tower’s roof last month.

The result has Sebenste smiling.

“The signal is pretty much perfect all over campus,” he said. “If there is a tornado or severe-weather storm approaching campus, the weather radios would reliably be able to receive these signals. Before we got this station, certain atmospheric conditions would cause reception to become unreliable across the entire campus. That is not the case anymore.”

Jim Allsopp, NWS warning coordination meteorologist, said that an early warning is critical.

“You may only have a few moments if there is a dangerous situation and need to get shelter,” he said. “Even a matter of [a] few seconds could make the difference between life and death.”

Sebenste said the new system cost NIU basically nothing. The NWS signal itself is fed by phone to the system and the NWS picks up the majority of those charges.

“We do pay for local telephone lines, but the National Weather Service picks up all long-distance charges,” he said. “It’s a very little fee. The NWS picks up pretty much 99 percent of the cost, including all maintenance.”

Rob Vest, director of the Environmental Health and Safety Department, praised the NWS for its response to the signal problem.

“It was a very positive thing and it was certainly needed,” he said. “It makes the radios [on campus] much more effective.”