Skindependent

Show up to the dock late and you missed the boat, my friend. I'm not bashing the career guys (as a whole), nor would I ever. The moral of my story is "people who live in glass houses". I know our side of things has its issues, and I'm doing my best from the inside to fix them. I take care of my own problems before I say something about someone else's. And if I am on a sinking ship (gotta love the nautical references here), I don't try to drag down others with me. However, I heard about this man in particular within weeks of first joining the service. In my years in, his name continually comes up in stories about his (mis)exploits trying to shut out volunteers. So perhaps I harbor a vendetta. That being said, the media has the right to pound salt. All they do is blow things out of proportion and make changes that much more difficult. And yes, I would bash anyone personally who tries to throw us as a volunteer organization, to the wolves. PS: "Going out on a limb" is fancy speak for ASSume.

Yes, please launch a media attack on the volunteer service. (sarcasm) You, sir, are a known enemy of us volunteers. Don't make like we haven't heard of your exploits trying to get volunteers shut out of the service. Deal with your own problems before you attack us. Got a problem with the way things are done? Volunteer and help us out. I'm not saying we are perfect, but I'll be damned if you think you can spread your volunteer hating rhetoric without opposition. Have a nice day :-)

I looked and found this old Mount Prospect police car. Cigarette lighter seems to be broken though.........

Depending on the position of the truck and overhead clearance, maybe extending the aerial at a negative pitch to go under the structure and use it as the platform to go up through the floor.

Yeah man, you dont see many Roto-rays in our area. Down the coast a bit, into the MD and DC regions, they would look at you funny if your rig DIDNT have one.

You gotta give it to FDNY for answering so many calls every year. Mathematically speaking, just the EMS calls, that breaks down into someone calling 911 for an ambulance once every 25 or so seconds....every day....all year. I know its a big city, with quite a few people, but just wow.

MoCo is always on top of stuff like this. If only PG, which is immediately next door, would follow suit. But I will get to guess again when the plow will come to me

I'll bid $1, Bob. (Drew Carey, while awesome, and very strange looking when skinny, can never really replace Barker).

I thought of this one while reading the posts about the headset that may or may not have been for the spotter in a previous post. In our Engine, every rider has an intercom headset with which to communicate inside the cab without excessive engine noise/siren noise overwhelming the conversation. The headsets for the driver and officer also have the ability to communicate with dispatch and other units without having to use another mic. The discussion that has been brought up has been over the safety of these headsets. Does the attenuation of the noise as a result of the headset of the driver pose a safety hazard by compromising the driver's abilities to hear horns or other noises from other vehicles on the road? Would/wouldn't the siren and apparatus horn drown out those noises anyway, so its a moot point? Could there be extended legal ramifications if the apparatus becomes involved in a collision because of these headsets? Thanks in advance for all of your opinions.

Just to throw it out there, and I think it was brought up at some point already, scannerland could be a good place to be while writing an IA. If you are O/S operating at an incident, you are concentrating on the job you are tasked to perform. You may not be aware of everything thats going on over the radio, because 100% of your attention is not focused on it. Someone sitting at a desk, listening to the incident with the scanner on the other hand, concentrates 100% on each transmission, and most likely can get a good idea of whats going on seeing as major events in the fire timeline will be transmitted over the radio.

I think that for OUR ENGINE, PPE makes operating the apparatus a bit harder, but not impossible. I still feel more comfortable in street clothes, but my PPE is always in the compartment right behind me should I arrive O/S and need it. While I don't think that NFPA has anything to say on the subject of TOG for MPO, the 2009 revision does state that no person in the apparatus should wear helmets while riding in the rig.

I doubt the batteries have actually leaked, they are sealed fairly well. The crust you see on the terminals is corrosion. Just take a flathead screwdriver and scrape it off, put new batteries in, and it should work.

Briarcliff replaced their siren/horn with an electronic equivalent about 2 or so years ago. it was pretty funny when they first put it in, because the timing was extremely off, and it would sound at all hours of the night. and while it does go off for EMS as well as Fire, an EMS siren is a single cycle, and is not accompanied by the horn

Maybe if the GPS is laptop based, the dispatcher can use a remote access program to pre-program it.

Wow, thats pretty messed up. But did you click around and see the hit and run in Hartford video? No one did anything, I'm in shock.