trauma74

Wavelengths A cautionary tale By Glenn Bischoff November 3, 2006 In the three years I have been writing columns for MRT -- and for three years prior to that for sister publication Telephony -- I have refrained from pontificating on personal tales of woe regarding telecommunications service providers, believing there are far better uses for the space. I'm deviating from that stance today, because I think a recent experience has relevance in terms of some of the debate ensuing right now concerning the future of public-safety communications. Perhaps you have seen the television advertisement Verizon Wireless has been running that touts the carrier's nationwide wireless broadband service. The ad is clever: Several office workers, gathered for a meeting, playfully discuss whether the service truly is nationwide. When one of the gathered confirms the service indeed is available in Las Vegas, the boss slaps on the shades and bolts. At the end of the ad, one of the workers is depicted in a moving vehicle, surfing the Web at lightning speed -- so fast, in fact, that Verizon's service as depicted in the ad would put any cable service to shame. Of course, anyone viewing the ad would take this with a giant grain of salt -- ads often take creative liberties. For instance, ads showcasing the products of any one of the national hamburger chains indeed make those products look like something fit for a king. When you receive the real deal, your immediate reaction is to consider whether that moment might be a good time to start that diet you've been putting off. So, when I signed up for Verizon's service earlier in the year -- I travel a lot and thought it would come in handy in airports and convention centers -- I had no grand illusions. I figured the quality would be somewhere between dial-up and cable service. And I was right -- at least in the beginning. It wasn't great, but it also wasn't bad, and you can't beat the convenience of wireless. Soon after, however, the service significantly degraded -- specifically by constantly going dormant, even when I was actively surfing the Web. After putting up with this for a while -- you have no idea how frustrating it was -- I returned to the store and talked to a customer service representative, who had no clue as to what might be causing the problem. He put me on the phone with another technician who -- after about a half hour of troubleshooting -- confided that Verizon had reengineered the network architecture because many users were logging onto corporate VPNs and then not using the service much as they turned their attention to other tasks, causing an undue strain on network capacity. Specifically, Verizon programmed triggers that would put a user into dormant mode after 30 minutes of inactivity, he told me. I eventually dropped the service, but not because I had any philosophical problem with the concept of dormancy. Rather, I cancelled because my connection was going dormant after 30 seconds, not 30 minutes, and Verizon couldn't figure out why. But that's not the point of this column. What I find most interesting about this is that Verizon apparently recognized it didn't have network capacity sufficient to accommodate how its customers were using the service, so the carrier unilaterally changed the rules of engagement -- and then failed to tell its customers about the change. This should sound an alarm through the public-safety sector. Verizon reportedly is wooing public-safety officials with a proposed public/private network in the 700 MHz band, utilizing 12 MHz of spectrum already allotted to public safety when broadcasters vacate the band in 2009. Moreover, Cyren Call Communications is enticing first responders with the notion of a public/private partnership that would result in commercial providers building a nationwide broadband network to public-safety specifications -- and granting first responders priority access to the airwaves. The moral of this story is that commercial providers are always going to act based on what's best for their bottom lines and shareholders, not their customers. Accordingly, public-safety officials should be very wary of siren calls and -- better still -- make sure they hire very good attorneys capable of negotiating iron-clad quality-of-service provisions and hefty penalties for non-compliance before they partner with any commercial entity.

Yesterday I was at the KVI Uniform Shop in Middletown, NY doing some business for my agency and I noticed a red/white Talon LED flashing in the shelf. I spoke with the owner about the light and he told me that the light is actually an imitation Whelen Talon made my some other company. Everything on this light is exactly the same as a Talon. He had another light that looked like the Dominator also. The same was true for this light. The Talon style light is selling for $150 in all color combinations. Upon further conversation with the owner he told me that one of his customers who bought one of these lights took it apart and it actually had Whelen boards inside it. I was pretty surprised. I mean, for the price you can get something exactly like a Talon for a much better price. Has anyone else seen these lights yet?

Orange County has a Towns & Villages/Deputy Sheriff test coming up, but I think the filing date may have past. Some PDs are here have guys making in the low to mid $70s.

Rest In Peace Brother!

Rob, I am keeping the colors top secret! LOL!....feel free to snap some pics of the new fly car and post them on here.

I will break some news right now. My agency is getting two Horton Medium Duty Ambulances in December.

I have been to many of these race car competitions over the years while visiting friends of mine who are members of a L.I. FD. They are great to watch and there is a lot of fun involved. I have also seen several bad accidents where guys had to be taken away in ambulances. I know one guy that lost his thumb during a competition.....and yes!....anytime these guys get hurt it is covered by the FDs workers comp insurance. I have also been in many of the rec rooms in different stations that I visited. These places look like a bar that the general public would visit for a drink or two. I once visited an FD that has a one square mile fire district. They have 10 pieces of apparatus in their station, plus 3 chief's cars. They also have their own dispatchers even though County FireCom is more then capable of doing the job. As a matter fact there are many FDs on the Island that have their own dispatch. They have voice and digital dispatching with MDTs in all theirs trucks. They have their own radio systems that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars etc. Do not get me wrong, I am often jealous of these things and I wish that my agency had them. If tax payers really want to complain about spending they should just look past race cars and rec rooms and dig deeper into the budget.

Back in March when I attended the EMS Expo is Balitmore, I went to a class given by a group of EMS/FD lawyers. The class was on the transition from a volunteer to a paid department. The topic of "paying" or providing incentives to volunteers was discussed. The lawyers have been in contact with the US Dept of Labor as well as many State Labor Departments. A ruling was made that you can "pay" or give a gift to someone who volunteers their time. They stated that as long as the "pay" would be well below the minimum wage amount, it would be legal. They also said that this "pay" would not be taxed. I hope that this can clear up a few things

Robert, Give me day or two and I will get all the info for you and help you program your scanner from OC.

OMFG!

Correction on the PL Tone. It is 94.5

Orange County Fire Control (36 Control) has put the frequency of 45.78mhz with a PL tone of 123.0 up onto the Graham Tower. This frequency will be used as a secondary channel when the primary channel(46.22/46.16) is busy or when assigned by 36 Control. Truck to Truck communications are not permitted on this frequency. It is for 36 Control to Apparatus and Apparatus to 36 Control Communications only.

I just looked at the pics of the new UMDNJ Rescue truck. I must say that it is pretty awesome. I like UMDNJ's view on how rescue is part of overall patient care. I would never want to take rescue services away from the FD in my area, but I think that if more EMS personnel had knowledge of rescue operation it could make for a better patient outcome.

Here is a recent article I came across: Feature (Full-Length) Niche markets give paging a brighter future By Glenn Bischoff July 31, 2006 Once devices such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants gained mass-market penetration and their prices plummeted, it seemed only a matter of time before paging joined Betamax, LPs and 8-tracks on the evolutionary scrap heap. However, niche opportunities in the enterprise sector not only are giving paging a new lease on life, they are creating a scenario in which the ancient--at least in technology terms--platform will thrive for many years to come. According to Jay Lemmons, owner of Technology at Work, a consultancy based in Sacramento, Calif., paging in the consumer marketplace experienced a serious regression--"Ten years ago, it was hot, now it's not"--but has seen healthy activity in the enterprise space because it offers the only means of delivering a message immediately to a large number of recipients. "A hospital isn't going to send a 'code red' out to staff using cell phones," he said. One factor that makes pagers attractive to enterprise communications managers is that they generally are less costly than mobile phones and PDAs -- which is particularly important for companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people. They also can take much more physical abuse than their more sophisticated cousins, which makes pagers the device of choice in rugged industries such as construction. Also, many pagers are rated intrinsically safe--unlike cell phones and PDAs, which almost universally are not--making them an attractive option in hazardous environments, Lemmons said. While messaging applications undeniably have become more sophisticated, particularly over the past two years with the advent of text-to-voice and voice-to-text conversions, such technology advances become irrelevant when users are in situations where they don't have time or opportunity to look at the display screen, said Jerry Wanger, CEO of paging equipment vendor Connect Systems, who added, "people are still buying paging systems." Don Klabunde, vice president of vendor DX Radio Systems, agreed, pointing to the medical profession as a prime example. "Most doctors want pagers because they don't want to have to answer the phone," he said. "Only in emergencies do they want to talk to a device. Consequently, just about every hospital has a paging system, and they're being upgraded in huge numbers." Regarding the concept of next-generation technology, Klabunde suggested that paging vendors would be wise to push what is still a comparatively unsophisticated platform that hasn't changed much since its inception to the next level. "We have to devise ways to use paging systems to more benefit than just paging," he said, adding that a good first step would be to develop ways for pagers to interact with other devices. For example, pagers in the future could be used to manage heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems across an enterprise campus. A precursor for such a scenario can be found in the public utility sector, which already is embracing paging in a major way, and not just for pushing out alerts to field personnel, according to Klabunde. Increasingly, power companies are engaging in the practice of load shedding -- the tactic of cutting current to certain lines when demand exceeds supply -- and are using paging systems to read meters and send signals to switches. "It saves a truck roll," Klabunde said. Another key factor behind paging's continued popularity in the enterprise sector is that the cost of deploying and operating a two-tone paging system is considerably less than operating a text-messaging system, Wanger said. This is particularly important because many of the firms that provided paging services went out of business when the consumer marketplace dried up. As a result, more and more businesses are deploying, maintaining and operating their own systems. "Two-tone utilizes simple algorithms, so it doesn't take up a lot of processing power. More sophisticated systems require a lot more resources. Any time you have more computations, you use more power," he said, adding that more sophisticated systems "are also more difficult to figure out how they work." Consequently, paging systems are good choices for companies that may not have the resources to keep RF technicians on staff. Factor in the amortization cycles for legacy systems and the cost-prohibitive nature of forklift replacements, and it's easy to see why many entities in the enterprise sector are choosing to stay with their paging systems even when next-generation systems capable of accomplishing much more are available. "People can't afford to buy new radios just because [vendors] have better technology," Wanger said. This is particularly true for the hundreds of volunteer fire departments that dot America, according to Chuck Soulliard, owner of vendor Midian Electronics. "They need a cheap form of communication they can stick on their belts. They get the message immediately, so they can respond more quickly," he said, noting that there "seemed to be more interest" in paging at IWCE 2006, which was held in Las Vegas in May. While Midian is working on a next-generation paging system it hopes to launch by the end of 2006 that will add a voice component, Soulliard said basic analog systems would continue to be relevant for quite some time. "It works and doesn't require a device on every street corner to make sure it works," he said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q&A (Full-Length) Increasingly, first responders are getting the message By Donny Jackson July 31, 2006 Public-safety entities are using various forms of messaging services to communicate information as efficiently as possible. MRT Senior Writer Donny Jackson recently spoke with Charles Werner, chief of the Charlottesville (Va.) Fire Department, to discuss trends he sees in the industry. How does your department use messaging services? Our [computer-aided dispatch system] is tied into a third-party software platform. In one sense, we're able to take a simple alphanumeric pager, put it on all the fire trucks and create what you might call a poor man's mobile data computer. They get all the calls specific to their unit on the pager in addition to the voice [communication] that comes out--so you have a duplicate automatic-dispatch service. It's a good way to get information ... and it's relatively inexpensive to put in place. The pagers are about $20 per month, and the software for the CAD interface is about $3000. You mentioned messaging as a duplicate service. Are some departments using messaging as the primary means of communication? Some fire departments are using dispatch for calls solely. They're using the two-way paging capability so that, when the page goes out, they can press their button and also indicate that they're responding. So the dispatcher gets information back about which of the people are responding to the call. What are the advantages of communicating via messaging? Text gives us the information in a written form that we can look at and read. It's particularly important if you've got a large volume of calls being dispatched and the radio traffic is too heavy or you can't hear. Obviously, you're getting your calls right to your pager, so you don't need to call back to dispatch [to repeat the message], so it cuts out a lot of unnecessary voice communications. We're reducing the amount of communications by voice that we have to do because of data. I think that's why you're seeing data coming up pretty quick in terms of the level of importance. Data becomes more important because you can get things taken care of more quickly. Are there times when you'd rather use messaging than voice? In a police situation, they may need information like that without any noise. For us, it's more of a convenience thing--when you're in meetings, you don't want to be interruptive. For police, it could be more of a sensitive issue. The pagers are also used to send sensitive medical information, where you can't violate [privacy laws] and you don't want information of a personal nature to get out. The message is going out specifically to that pager, so it's not going out over the general voice network to multiple people. You don't want to broadcast that to volumes of people who don't necessarily need to know that information ... or someone with a scanner to pick it up. What do you see in the future? If the coverage were in place, I think that pagers, cell phones, broadband and that type of stuff could be wrapped up in one nice neat little package and, potentially, reduce the amount of redundant equipment that I need to carry. Right now, I carry a BlackBerry, cell phone and pager all the time ... and an LMR radio at an incident scene. If the coverage was really good, I could probably go with one device, like a PDA.

I am a BIG critic of the Orange County Emergency Communications Center. I have come out against them in the papers and at meetings. The main problem with the 911 Center is that they use NYCOMCO as their vendor. The county does not have a radio systems coordinator or anyone who dictates to NYCOMCO what is good for the county and what the county needs. They let Charlie Ascher and other NYCOMCO employees dictate for them. That is why everything is all screwed up there!

AMEN TO THAT!

This incident happened at my firehouse. I got there about 10 minutes after it happened. 1st Assistant Chief Daniel Murray of the Monroe-Lakeside Fire & Rescue Company was on a mutual aid standby at the Trout Brook Engine & Hose Company #3 (Chester Station 3) while Chester was out a structure fire. Several Lakeside members came to the standby by way of their POVs. Chief Murray was standing outside of the firehouse by a metal post (the ones that prevent you from hitting the building). The other member backed up to leave and for some reason thought he has shifted his car into "drive", but he was still in reverse. When he hit the gas he went flying in reverse striking Chief Murray and pinning him against the metal post. Chief Murray's leg was crushed between the post and the rear bumper of the car. Although I did not get to see his exact injuries I was told that his leg was nearly amputated and he was bleeding from his femoral artery. Fortunately for Chief Murray, several EMTs from his department along with the President of Chester Station 3 and the President of Chester EMS were all on scene within seconds. Chester EMS and Mobile Life Support Services were on location withing a few minutes. Stat Flight was called to the scene and Chief Murray was transported to Westchester Medical Center. At this time his current condition is unknown. My department works hand in hand with Lakeside on a regular basis. They are a bunch of good guys. Chief Murray has been a member for about 20 years. He is a NYS EMT and he has served several times thru all of the line officer ranks. Please pray for a speedy and full recovery for Chief Murray. He is a self employed family man. With not being able to work, I am sure his family will endure some financial and emotional hardships. Thank you.

I drive fast in my car, but that it an insane speed for a bike or a car PERIOD! FRY EM!

Here we go again! What the hell is going on in NYC?! Is there not enough other crime going on that real criminals should be getting locked up for? EMTs & Medics have been carrying badges for years. There is nothing illegal about carrying a badge with a NYS seal and your EMT number on it. I can undertand getting arrested if you use your badge in an inappropriate manner or using it to impersonate a police officer, but to simply get arrested for carrying or wearing a badge! That is insane! Last months edition of the First Responder Newspaper had an article about the EMT who was arrested several months ago by the NYPD after a detective style badge was discovered in his briefcase as he was entering a federal courthouse. The article went on to say that the NYPD issued a statement that they will arrest any EMT or Paramedic, on or off duty who is in possession of a badge not issued by the City or the State. This now goes beyond just having a NYPD style badge. First of all, NYS does not issue EMT and Medic badges. They never have and I do not ever see this happening. NYC used to issue badges back in the day to their EMTs and Medics, but not anymore. So this means that even a badge issued by your agency could get you arrested in NYC. The NYPD statement does not even mention anything about having or not having a state or city seal. My agency issues badges to our members. See the link below for the style of badge we issue. It is the one in the top left corner of the page. http://www.smithwarren.com/catalog_80-21.php I am the one who designed our badge. My intent was to not make it look like a police badge, so instead of a state seal in the center, we have a blue star of life with a white background. There is no mistaking this badge for police badge. Line Officers get the badge in gold and all other members get it in silver. Does the NYPD statement include fire department badges too? Yeah, come and lock me up for carrying a badge that is in the shape of a maltese cross!!!! Since I became an EMT many years ago I always carried a badge in my wallet. My first badge was a silver NYPD police officer (not detective) style badge. It said "Emergency Medical Technician" along the top and had my EMT number at the bottom. Since I traveled 100 miles a day round trip to work I knew that I was bound to get stopped by a police officer for speeding somewhere along the way. When I got stopped I gave my drivers license to the officer and also showed him or her my badge and made a statement at the same time that I work EMS in "the city" I worked in at the time. I never said I was "on the job" or came across as a cop. I asked for professional courtesy and I received it. This badge was not issued by my company. We were a commercial service providing EMS to a city, we were not employees of that city. I lost count of the amout of times that I was pulled over going to and from work or when I was off duty, but I was ALWAYS 100% respectful to the police officers and they always extended me professional courtesy. I was never once questioned or had my balls broke about this style of badge. Eventually I purchased a detective style badge and I have been carrying that for many years now. I have been stopped while carrying that badge and I never got questioned about that one either. The police officers up here do not ever break balls about EMS badges. I do not understand why NYC has to do it. Many agencies do not have ID cards for their members so the badge is their only source of ID when they are off duty. I recently wrote a 3 page letter to my local Senator about this issue. I strongly encourage all of you to do the same. ...........................end of rant!!!!!

I think this is a step in the right direction. I still see no reason why PD cars here in NY should not be allowed to have blue facing toward the front. In my own opinion all emergency vehicles should be able to run a combination of blue, red and white lights. Maybe this will happen down the line.

Ok, after some assistance I got with the 996 software my scanner is now working. I must say that it was worth all the BS I went thru. This scanner kicks a**!

Here in my VAC we do allow members to take their POVs to the scene. The only roadway that my members are not permitted to take their vehicles on is the major highway (State Route 17) that runs thru our district. Once in a while, mostly for a major MVA myself or another line officer will allow a member(s) to respond on the highway. Myself and my 2 Lts are permitted to take our POVs anywhere because we have our vehicles equipped and certified by the NYS DOH as Emergency Ambulance Service Vehicles (fly cars). The FD here in my town lets any member respond to the scene in their POV and they have the same rule we do with responding onto the highway. With EMS all of my EMTs carry a medical bag in their car, so if they arrive on scene before the bus they can begin patient care. The FD members on the other hand do not have water etc in their POVs. There have been plenty of times when one of them rolled up on the scene of a fire and stood there and we were helpless while someones house was burning down.

I just purchased a brand new Uniden BCD996T scanner off eBay for $504. This is a pretty decent price. I have to say that I spent nearly 3 hours trying to figure this damn thing out. I downloaded the software, hooked it up, programmed all my frequencies in and I could not get it to scan. The screen kept saying nothing to scan. The group/system I had was unlocked and appeared to be programmed correctly. I finally gave up for the night and I will try again soon. Why the hell do they have to make these new scanner so complicated to use?

I second that!

If you think that Rockland is bad when it comes to dispatching and too much radio traffic, you should listen to Orange County one night!!!