trauma74

If the State had rejected the lowest bidder, which they are allowed to do and went with the $3 Billion Motorola System, they would have had most of the system already built out and they would be wasting all this money on testing a system that is going to fail anyway. If M/ACOM systems are so great, then why is the Federal Govts nationwide radio system on a Motorola system? The State should look to the Feds and see how their system works and then dump the current project. STOP WASTING TAXPAYERS MONEY ON A SYSTEM THAT IS GOING TO FAIL!!!!!

LTNRFD, AMEN BROTHER!!!!!!!! I have been a dedicated EMS volunteer for close to 15 years now and I was around when advanced first aiders and CFRs were the manning the buses. Shortly after I joined my VAC was working on getting "NYS Certified" and putting those "NYS CERTIFIED" decals on our buses. I remember when the NYS DOH didnt pay for the EMT classes for the members of VACs. The VAC had to pay the money for their members to attend EMT Class. Things were kind of backwards in the old days, but nobody should ever forget that if it was not for the older timers, their VACs would not exist they way they do today.

The Aux Police Officers in the New Windsor PD would assist with traffic at Town events such as the concerts held at the Town Hall in the summer time, at the County Fire Parade that was held back in September and when other communities needed extra officers for traffic control. During the Holidays they would patrol the busy parking lots of the stores in Vails Gate. They would assist in traffic control, help motorists who locked their keys in their cars or who may need their car jumpstarted, they would get people to move their cars out of the fire lanes and overall, their presence would help deter crime. Seeing someone in a police uniform patrolling a parking lot would make a "would be ciminal" think twice about committing a crime. These Aux Officers were armed and their uniform was very similar to a regular NWPD officers uniform. Their badges were different and their department patch had "AUX" at the bottom of it where it comes to a point. From any distance, the average person could not tell the difference between a regular officer and an aux officer. All of the Aux Officers carried the same firearm as the regular officers, they were trained by the NWPD Firearms instructors and they had to re-qualify every year. They wore the same body armor as the police officers. They were all certified "Peace Officers". They never patrolled the Town on their own. They were always paired up with a regular full time police officer. They assisted on traffic stops and any calls that the regular units answered. When they were off duty, they didnt have any powers of arrest and they couldnt carry their firearms via their shield. They had to have NYS Pistol Permits to carry outside of "work".

This is the 2nd VAC in the Orange/Sullivan County area to close within 2 days. This is a very sad situation. If a VAC doesnt have enough volunteers, they need to hire paid EMTs like many of the other VACs in the area have done. Letting a commercial service in to completely cover any town is not a good thing.

What a damn shame! I know some people who volunteer there. I am sure that the few remaining members are heart broken. I guess they didnt have the funding to add paid staff and that is why they closed their doors. I hate nothing more then to see a vollie EMS fold.

A slow- simmering issue threatens to erupt into a full boil By FRED LeBRUN First published: Sunday, November 18, 2007 Our beloved state may be on the precipice of wasting an awful lot of money, into the billions. The hot question is this, though: Does the state care enough about stopping a boondoggle before the money is spent, or is the state content to wait, then just wring its hands when nothing can be done about it? The Statewide Wireless Network is one of those slow simmering back-burner issues that the media don't usually get excited about until the pot boils over. Well, the lid is starting to lift. A telecommunications company called M/A COM won the bid in 2005 to give New York a federally mandated single digital wireless radio system that all first responders and public safety types in the state could use to communicate. The contract calls for the system to cover 95 percent of the state, although how smart that is remains an argument for another column. The original cost was $1 billion in New York taxpayer dollars over 20 years, but that's grown to $2.1 billion and the smart money says that's just the beginning. So far, M/A COM has a spotty at best record of delivering on the contract. The company is already a year behind. More importantly, the proprietary technology M/A COM is selling remains unreliable. Outside industry professionals are cautioning that the technology, even if reliable, does not meet federal compatibility standards so New York can talk to the rest of the country. Still, that puts in question federal reimbursements, not to mention that one of the main points of this expensive exercise is that the system is supposed to be part of a national network. On top of that, because M/A COM is crafting its own exclusive technology, any of the first responders or public safety types that opt to hook into it will have to buy equipment from M/A COM. Now, maybe M/A COM is on the verge of a terrific breakthrough, but probably not. The only other state trying to use this same technology, Pennsylvania, was supposed to have its system done by 2001. It's still waiting. What started as a $200 million project there is approaching a half a billion. The State Office of Technology insists the technology will be federally compliant, in spite of the doubters. But, frankly, the State Office of Technology appears to be too willing to forgive M/A COM's shortcomings, and is not a reliable judge of performance here. M/A COM's technology got a huge setback last month in critical tests in western New York, in Erie County. Fox News even reported on it nationally. It worked in some places, sometimes, and not in others. Totally haphazard, which, given the gravity of its use, is total failure. Chautauqua County had better results, but Erie County suspended for 90 days any more tests until M/A COM shows improvement. That test was the first in the state for M/A COM, but was also what is known as a "proof of concept." M/A COM won't get a dime from the state until the technology is proven to work, and this test was supposed to be it. Except now the Office of Technology is waffling on that, and giving M/A COM more time to correct mistakes. It's a primrose path we're on here. Because at the same time, Hanford Thomas, the office's Statewide Wireless Network project director, says the state will decide next month whether to go ahead with this network, and that Erie County's participation doesn't matter. Whoa, State of New York. Special interests are being protected here, and it's time to wake up and take care of the taxpayer before we start doling out the millions. Tom LaBelle, president of the New York State Firefighters Association, is cautiously suggesting a hard look at M/A COM and the contract are in order. "We have been very supportive of the concept of interoperability, and of a state-wide wireless. But at this point, there is simply no way of knowing whether M/A COM's system will work or not work. Too much depends on our communication system. When we need it, we really need it. There's no second chance." Erie County Legislator Timothy Kennedy has asked Comptroller Tom DiNapoli for a full-scale audit of this boondoggle in the making. Kennedy has asked Assemblyman Richard Brodsky as chairman of the appropriate committee to hold public hearings on the contract and its implementation, and the technology. On Thursday, U. S. Reps. Nina Lowey, Brian Higgins and Joseph Crowley asked the comptroller to appoint an independent third party to conduct the proof of concept test. An entity not associated with the Office of Technology. The Comptroller's Office says that on Wednesday, oddly enough, it started an audit of the Erie County tests and roll-out, and whether terms and conditions have been met. Assemblyman Brodsky added, "Clearly there are many, many unanswered questions about this contract, financial, legal, operational. We're going to get answers." I can see the lid popping a little higher now. Fred LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com. =

The State Office of Information Technology is never going to admit that this system is going to be a complete failure. They are going to keep "studying" and "testing" this system because they do not want to admit to the taxpayers of NY that they failed. They need to stop WASTING our money on this system and look down other avenues. Motorola's bid for a SWN system was a lot higher than M/ACOM's because Motorola would have built a system that would actually work. The Office of Information Technology needs to look around the State and see that many Counties are building their own radio systems. These Counties are using Motorola systems on the UHF and VHF frequency bands. NONE of them are building 700mhz or 800mhz systems because these frequency bands are not suitable for the mountains, hills or inside buildings made of concrete and steel. Look at the nationwide radio systems that the Feds have. They have VHF & UHF systems. The State needs to open their eyes and stop wasting our money!

I know it has been discussed already, but you also have the agencies who are using blue in the front. I am in favor of this. I think it is just a matter of time before the law is again amended to permit blue in the front.

I am a strong advocate of the organ donor program. I am listed as an organ donor myself and they may harvest any organs needed. Aside for putting yourself in harms way and dying in the process of a heroic act, donating your organs so another person may continue to live is a selfless act. I never knew there was a transport vehicle such as this out there. It is great because getting organs transported rapidly is a top priority. I am not asking to be a ball buster and I dont really care if there is not anything in writing about it, but is there anything in the NYS VTL regading organ transport vehicles and the use if red lights and sirens on them? Also, I heard at one time that the medivacs from our area also fly the organs to where they need to go. Is this true?

Click on the PDF attachment to read the HVREMSCO approval of Absorbable Hemostatic Agents. HemostaticAgents.pdf

Wasnt there a private FD somewhere in Westchester County years ago?

Regardless of what the law says, many FD & EMS vehicles now have blue lights on the rear. It makes a big difference when traffic is approaching. You can see the blue long before you see the red or amber.

I was also thinking about looking at the new Moto Q. I know that non-Blackberry devices dont have push email etc, but I would also not have to pay to have an extra Blackberry data plan. Also, I am not sure if anyone has seen it yet, but there is a now a Wi-Fi card that is miniSD size. It can bring WiFi to any device that takes a miniSD card.

I know that everyone will be quick to point the finger at the FD, but we should wait for a more detailed report to be released.

Congrats to the SPD on the addition of their MC Unit.

About 10 years ago I was riding the rear step of our engine during our candy cane run. A call came in and the driver forgot about a few of us that were on the back. I do not know how guys did it in the past, but it was one of the scariest rides of my life!!!!!

Without spending a decent amount of money, you are probably not going to be able to meet your goal. Uniforms are not cheap these days. I do see the need for a dress or class A type uniform in the EMS field. I designed a class A uniform for my agency a few years ago. We started off by purchasing these uniforms for our operational and administrative officers. Now, we buy a few of these uniforms every year and eventually all my members will have them. The idea for a dress uniform came because I was tired of seeing EMS personnel look like crap among fire and police personnel. Our dress uniform is worn for wake and funeral services, memorial services or any other type of event that a dress uniform should be worn. Our Officers also wear their uniforms at our annual awards dinner. We have received many compliments on how nice our uniform looks and how professional it is.

A press conference about this was held at the New Windsor EMS HQ on Thursday. I spoke with the Chief from NWEMS who told me that the whole area will be getting the increase.

I have been extended courtesy by several different PD agencies over the years. Sometimes it was because I am a VAC member or because I am an FD member or because I dispatch for a local PD. Although I am not a LEO, I would NOT hesitate to stop and assist any LEO if I saw them rolling around with some mope on the side of the road. I am not obligated to stop, but I strongly feel that it is the right thing to do. This even goes for the POs who have written me tickets. Yes, I would still stop and help them out. I have a NYS Pistol Permit, on occasion I do carry my Glock 40, if I ever saw that a PO was in trouble and in danger of being injured or killed by a suspect, I would NOT hesitate to take action against the suspect. I have a personal friend who is a Firearms Instructor for a local PD. He has provided me with many hours of training on how to properly discharge my weapon to protect myself or to protect someone else. The Police are here to protect us, however, sometimes there are people who do not think this way, they want to harm or kill POs. It should be the duty of any citizen to come to the aid of a PO who may be in trouble. That is how I feel. I know that there are some people who do not agree with my view, but due to the fact that I come from a family of cops, if my father (retired cop) was still on the job and he was in trouble, I would like nothing more than for someone to come to his aid and do whatever needed to be done to help him.

I remember the days of the NYSP blue and yellow Dodge Diplomat cars. That was a LONG time ago.

Final department OKs police dispatch center By Meghan E. Murphy Times Herald-Record November 26, 2007 Maybrook — Arnold "Butch" Amthor doesn't take the reins as Town of Montgomery police chief until Jan. 1, but he's already achieved consensus among four disparate police departments. Last week, the Montgomery Village Board gave Amthor the last nod he needed to start organizing a joint police dispatching center among the villages of Maybrook, Walden and Montgomery and the Town of Montgomery. In order to create a dispatch communications center, Amthor is applying for a State Assistance for Shared Municipal Services grant, which offers up to $200,000 for each municipality. Police departments would retain current daytime dispatchers, and after-hours calls would be answered by an expanded 24-hour Walden-based center, rather than the current service in Chester. The new center would dispatch only police officers, not other emergency responders. Amthor, who was hired as chief on Nov. 1., previously worked as liaison for the town, helping local police departments take inventory and look for consolidation potential. He currently is a deputy chief with the City of Newburgh Police Department. Village of Montgomery Mayor Steve Brescia expressed concern about maintaining a rapport between dispatchers and residents under the new system. But Amthor said that any staff would be local, assuring that residents could talk around the clock with someone familiar. The center also could improve police communications, he said, as municipalities would purchase compatible radios, enabling officers to talk during mutual aid incidents. The center also could improve police safety, data collection on calls and prepare the towns for growth, Amthor said. Walden police Chief Jeffry Holmes said a local center was somewhat of a luxury, but taxpayers would be getting a much-improved service. Village of Montgomery Trustee Robert Kiernan questioned whether a shared dispatch was the first step toward police department consolidation. While Holmes said consolidation is something that will be discussed in the long term, Amthor made a firm statement about his current position: "I'm not here telling you I want to take over," he said.

I hope that they will stay away from the NYCOMCO 800MHZ EDACS System for their communications. They would be better off using smoke signals, morse code or 2 cans together with a string instead of the faulty EDACS system that has very poor coverage!

The SWN is a pipe dream. The State is going to be broken up 3 zones for communications. Part of the State will be on 700 band, another part of 800 band and the last part of a VHF digital trunked system. How can you have a true Statewide system when you have 3 different frequency bands. I know that the radios for the 700 and 800 band will be dual band radios so they will work on either system, but what about the VHF? The 700/800 radios will not be able to work on the VHF system and the VHF radios will not work on the 700/800 band system. Units in the boarder areas will have to have 2 mobile in their vehicles and who knows about the portable radios. The State had these big plans of putting up radio towers all over the State, but they ran into resistance in many of the park land areas. So instead of putting up high elevation towers they are putting lower towers, but there will be more of them. Many of the repeaters will be on utility poles. How will these repeaters be protected against vandalism and terrorism? What happens when vehicle strikes a utility pole and knocks out radio services for the public safety units that are responding to that call? The SWN will not have a failsoft feature, so when the system goes down, there will be no way for units to communicate. There are no plans for a backup of system of conventional non-trunked repeaters. There is no plan for non-repeated talk around channels. OSHA & NFPA prohibit the use of repeater systems on the fireground and for interior fire attack. The radio for the SWN will not be programmed for talkround channels, even if they were set up to use talkaround, it would be complicated to switch to that feature. The radios cannot scan trunked and non-trunked at the same time. Any agency wishing to utilize talkaround channels will be forced to get licensed for these frequencies which is a long process. There will be limited vendors that will sell and program the radios for the SWM, so the M/ACOM dealers will be making all the money. Agencies who currently do their own radio programming will not be permitted to do it anymore. Competition will not exist because you need these special radios to work on the SWN. You cannot chose between M/ACOM, Motorola, Kenwood, Icom, Vertex etc like with conventional radio systems. M/ACOM will have the monopoly. The cost of the radios for the SWN is going to be cost prohibitive. Even though other radio companies are supposedly going to be permitted to manufactor radios that will work on the SWN, they will still cost upwards of $5000 each. The average portable and mobile radios used by my agency are between $500-$700. Where will the money come from to purchase 50 portable and 6 mobile radios at $5000 each? How can you justify this cost to the taxpayers?? The technology planned for the SWN is untested and unproven. The closest system to this technology is being used in the State of PA and the system has failed miserably. Most of the agencies have reverted back to their old radio systems.

snkbitn, It is appears that you are a NYCOMCO/MACOM fan. If you look around you will see that all of their systems are unreliable. Their system in PA has failed miserably. NYCOMCO's 800 EDACS system is one of the worst radio system that has even been used in this area. The State has already sunk a lot of money into this project. While they say that MACOM will not get paid until the system is operational, there is money being poured into this project. There are tower sites that have been built already, plus the amount of man hours that the state employees have spent trying to get this system off of the ground. The way that they want this system to work and the actual way it is going to work are two VERY different things. If NYS really wanted to build a good system, they should take a look at the Federal radio systems. The Feds use VHF & UHF digital trunked systems. If 700/800 band is so great, then why isnt the federal government looking to switch to this type of system. This system will not even be compatible with any of the radio systems in NYC. Westchester, Rockland and Nassau are building out their own UHF systems. These 3 counties are pretty rich. They studied MACOMs systems and decided that they want nothing to do with it. It is sad that the State is going to waste our taxpayers money on something that will NEVER work correctly!

We have 2 Type 1 buses, but they are on International chassis instead of the pickup truck chassis. I love them. Warwick (NY) VAC has a Type 1 on the F-450 chassis and I have been told that they love it.