evacuation tones

[HCFRFF 0]

Does 60 control or any self dispatching department in the county have evacuation tones?

[x242Steve 1]

[mikeinet 37]

... 60 control to everyone.... RUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

[HCFRFF 0]

well its pretty obvious that the units on scene are gonna blow there horns

[Guest]

Haha, nice one!!

[HCFRFF 0]

just trying to ask a serious qeustion and have a good descusion but looks like ive been highjacked

good talk see ya out there!

[mikeinet 37]

In all seriousness, what do you mean by evacuation tones? at a scene, or say an incident at Indian Point?

The county does have "north county" and "south county" tones which are trying to get pushed out to all the depts to put into their pagers... but to get all the pagers in the county reprogrammed... well now that's another story.

It's a step in the right direction though!

Besides that, sometimes during major incidents (ie: blackout last year? 2 years ago? hmm whenever it was) you'll hear 60ctl go over the radio and say "60ctl to all departemtns, you are requested to man your stations" but they arn't going to go paging out x departments to deliver the msg (hense the try for a north/south tone)

[HCFRFF 0]

i know its the standard that when the IC calls for a evacuation at a incident that the air horns are blown. Some departments and one for example prince georges county fire, there comunnications have a spiecal tone for when the IC calls a evacuation, its not nessarly meant to alert pagers but your gonna here it on the radio the radio that you should be wearing inside a fire. its a long and distinct tone so everybody knows what it is. My department doent have a evacutaion tone but they do have the long all page tone like westchester does. Its been used once or twice to insure that everybody heres whats going on incase they for some reason didnt hear the horns

as for tone for indian point, which was my old first due, if thoses tones went off and they wernt testing the sirens you would find me at the local bar getting my last drink [-o<

[Guest alsfirefighter]

HCRFF:

I know exactly what you are speaking of and no 60 Control doesn't have a set tone for when an evacuation is given. Remember they (which I think is one of the biggest problems) do not provide general functions on their own, they must have a protocol, policy or procedure from a department they dispatch for to perform certain functions.

There are also several more problems with this:

1. For departments that operate on 46.26 you can have more then 1 incident on-going. Which incident would the tone be for? You could create a safety issue if it is transmitted and everyone operating on the scene of a incident that it could be used for starts leaving. Sure you can say well if you don't hear air horns or whatever else departments are using, but it still can be confusing, every radio will start transmitting "is that for us?" and so on.

2. Stand alone departments whom have their own dispatch or get dispatched by the local PD's :roll: Sometimes I hear some of them calling and calling with no answer. Or the person doesn't understand the request, or a greater one that I heard not to long ago "standby we're busy in here." Doesn't anyone else think that we could have better staffed and operated Fire/EMS comm if everyone else would come on board to a county system? You have just as much control on what you want to do (which again I think things need to be streamlined more like dutchess's system), and who you want sent. Is there really anything much different that your dispatch is doing that you couldn't get from county, other then more accurate data keeping from a CAD system.

3. Ever had an evac tone stepped on? I sure have. luckily it wasn't the entire one and the commericial building didn't drown out the air horns too badly. How is things on 46.26 as far as getting stepped on lately? #-o

Good question, not a bad idea, but a ton more issues that need to get solved prior to this one.