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The Troopers were the first to arrive. Yes, the police often respond to emergencies in the rural parts of the state. This being a Friday afternoon, just before Christmas in a sparsely populated town with a well hidden from road/view structure the fire had a lot of headway before it was discovered. The person who discovered the fire actually drove to the volunteer firehouse to report it, found no one there and used the emergency phone to notify 911. The fire department was finally called, and almost immediately called 3 more departments under mutual aid for assistance. There is not a career fire department within sight of southern Columbia County. Troopers arrived initially and updated 911. The fire department did eventually show up with an engine, a tanker and a rescue each with a driver. With the limited manpower and some more enroute from neighboring departments with extended ETA's, the IC asked the Troopers for assistance to try to keep the fire from extending to the other portion of the house. The Troopers, 3/4 who are volunteer firefighters with chief officer experience and training obliged with permission from their supervisor. When enough fire personnel arrived, the Troopers were relieved and re-assumed their law enforcement roles. Maybe not the best situation, but it happened, happened safely and they did do some good. Let's face it, this fire was the biggest thing going on in Columbia County at the time and the 2 speeders that got away on the Taconic during the time the Troopers were manning the hoseline will be caught next time. As someone who takes a lot of fire pics in the Greene & Columbia areas I see the cooperation between law, fire and rescue squads all the time. You look up here at fire scenes and say "What the ....??" and I look at operations in the "Metro" areas and just scratch my head. And Truck12345 seriously? Bill the FD for the Troopers time?? Maybe we should send bills to the NYSP every time we have to sit at a wire down on a STATE road and wait for NiMo or CH?? Maybe the next time we need the Troopers to help close a road so we can lay supply line across the street, maybe they won't be there. I'm proud and happy that these Troopers were able to help and were not so disgruntled and screwed up that they just looked crosseyed at the Chief and said "Sorry dude. Not my job."

Anyone have any info on a new frequency (460.8250 i believe) that will be used for EMS ops for City of Poughkeepsie FD?? Anyone have a complete channel, frequency, text tag line-up for City Fire?? Thanks

There is no county-wide team in Rensselaer County. The City of Troy has a Ha-Mat team that covers the county as well as Troy. Columbia County has a Haz-Mat/Confined Space Rescue Team. No collapse rescue resources in the county. Another important note is that there are a few NYSTF-2 members that live & work/volunteer right in Dutchess, Ulster, Orange, etc.. that although would not have any equipment maybe able to arrive on the scene of an incident a little quicker and provide technical assistance prior to the entire team arriving. Not sure what their protocols are.. theymay not be able to respond directly to an incident without the rest of the team.. I don't know??

This would work only IF the operator was a LICENSED HAM. It is a violation of FCC Rules to operate on Amateur Radio frequencies if you don't have a license. It may be a good idea to include the ham frequencies so you can monitor the activity, but transmitting is illegal unless you have a amateur radio license.

A while back I swore I saw a list of Mobile Life station numbers/locations and units typically assigned to each, but I can't find it anywhere??? Anyone have a list they could share?? Thanks

Are you sure? I'm not doubting you, but that doesn't fit into the original countywide plan. The 80's were supposed to be for VAC's and EMS agencies. 81 - Alamo 82 - BVAC 83 - Sloper-Willen 84 - Northern Dutchess (Added later) 85 - MetroCare (now TransCare) (Added later - not used) 86 - Mobile Life (Added later - not used) Also I believe that DC Resource Recovery may have been listed somewhere??

That is what all the fancy very expensive equipment is supposed to prevent. In the immediate area of the county the reception should be good, but you will notice that as you get further away from the county you will not get as good reception as you used to. Reception is completely gone a ways north of the county line, where reception used to be OK.

Does anyone know definitively what departments used the 91 - 99 series numbers? I have a partial list below. I know some facilities no longer exist or are closed. Any insight would be helpful. 91 - FDVA Castle Point 92 - Dutchess County Airport 93 - Greenhaven CF 94 - Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center??? (Closed) Possibly used by Fishkill CF now??? 95 - Hudson River Psychiatric Center??? (Closed) 96 - IBM East Fishkill Emergency Control 97 - IBM Poughkeepsie Emergency Control 98 - Matteawan State Hospital??? 99 - Wassaic Developmental Center / Taconic DDSO??? (Closed)

Simulcast should actually help your pager open up better. Simulcast is the transmission being broadcast from the 7 radio tower sites at the same time. In the past when a departments area spanned more than one radio tower coverage area the tones and dispatch would be broadcast from one tower then the next. This is the reason you used to hear say, East Fishkill FD tones go out clear then the same tones go out, maybe a little scratchy. This is them being dispatched on one tower then another. With simulcast all seven towers are transmitting at the same time. Illinois, Clove, Silver, Hosner, Brooklyn Heights, Depot Hill, East Mountain. So no matter where you are in Dutchess County your pager should open up. As far as your pager not opening up, that may be an issue with location. Dutchess County especially the eastern portion has a lot of dead spots with UHF that didn't exist with VHF Low Band.

Anyone have a list of what CCs are what in Dutchess. I know some: CC1 - Emergency Coordinator CC3 - ?? Haz-Mat/LEPC?? CC4 - Used to be EMS CC5 - EMS CC9 - Training CC11 - Battalion 1 CC12 - Battalion 2 CC13 - Battalion 3 CC14 - Battalion 4 CC15 - Battalion 5 CC16 - Battalion 6 CC17 - Battalion 7 CC51 - FID CC61 - Haz-Mat CC72 - EMS?? CC73 - EMS?? Anyone have a good list of which FD's are in which Battalions?? Also are the 14-xx numbers still used for some coordinators, ie 14-79 - CIRT, 14-67 - Haz-Mat. I know that 14-59 is now FID1 and 14-69 is now Haz-Mat 1 and Field Comm 1 which I believe was 14-29 waaay back when befor they needed more dispatcher numbers. Also 14-48 and 14-49 used to be facilities maintenance if I remember right???

I think cell phone text messaging has its place as a supplement to radio dispatching. I do not beileve in any way that it should be relied upon as the sole or even primary means for alerting members. Having to rely on cell service carriers equipment and network is unacceptable for public safety applications such as this, but it does offer a nice supplemental benefit. It is not a solution to poor radio coverage though.

I can't believe that DC911 hasn't jumped on board with this yet. Even hillbilly Columbia County is sending text messages of dispatched alarms. Works great as a supplement to pagers. Though Columbia 911 still has the luxury of VHF-Low to cover its hilly terrain. I wish Dutchess would keep VHF-Low for alerting. UHF is great when the terrain allows, but in an area with such diversified terrain it is tough.

DC 911 PD Police Channel 1 (155.415) is now simulcast. Fire Dispatch (453.900) will be in the very near future. Low Band (46.360) is currently only working off of Clove and will be completely taken down in the near future. Removing all of the Low Band freqs was part of the plan since the UHF radio system was conceived in the 90's. 46.36 was only held onto to facilitate purchasing UHF alerting equipment. Well, its been well over 12 years I hope you worked it into your budgets by now. Anyone with Low Band alerting equipment (pagers, plectrons, siren controls, etc) start looking to purchase UHF equipment soon (NOW!)

That year hasn't come yet. While the majority of the volunteers and the volunteer companies dissappeared in the late 70's - early 80's there is still one volunteer left in the city. PFD Car 5. You can see him zipping around in his blue chevy blazer with the little red lights on the roof and dash and the bug catcher on the hood that says "PFD CAR 5". No idea what his title is or exactly what he does but he's there.