Interoperability - How does your city rate?

[Medic2588]

Here's the latest scorecard produced by Homeland Security about how some of the major cities are using Interoperability with their radio systems. This includes having the equipment, the written policies, and actually using it for all emergency services (police, fire, EMS, public works, etc).

http://wid.ap.org/documents/dhs.pdf

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/grants-...port-010207.pdf

Devin

[Asysin2leads]

I think NYC got bumped up a notch from 'crappy' to 'sucks' this year, citing improvements in communications. Excuse me for a second. Where's my soapbox? Ah, yes, there it is. Ahem.

MY ASS WE'VE IMPROVED COMMUNICATIONS!!! MY RADIO STILL HAS PROBLEMS! SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE GOING ON CALLS WITH TWO TIN CANS AND A LONG PIECE OF STRING! NOBODY HAS EXACTLY EXPLAINED WHY PD FREQUENCIES WERE REMOVED FROM OUR RADIOS, DESPITE IT BEING CALLED INTO QUESTION BY THE POLICE, EMS, DHS, FOX 5, AND JIMMY BRESLIN WRITING FOR NEWSDAY!!! HECK, WE'RE AT THE POINT OF FILING A LAWSUIT SO SOMEONE WILL EXPLAIN EXACTLY WHY IT HAPPENED!

Okay, I'm done. I now return you to your regular scheduled programming.

[rat115]

I knew that there was a definate advantage to being in a rural setting where you or someone else on scene knows the cell phone number or land line number for just about anybody in town. Plus, we do have the 800 mhz radios in each ambo and fire truck as well as all the LEO vehicles.

Unfortunately, we had to test the full extent of our area's ability to let everyone know how bad of a wreck we had on the interstate and who was involved (since it was someone that we'd all worked with in the course of our jobs as well as daily life) and keep it off the radio bands that could be picked up by the scanners in town.

[bassnmedic]

I can honestly say that in my area, it may be one of the best I have worked in as far as communications are concerned. Every Fire Dept and LEO Dept are programmed in our radios as well as each others. and communications between all happen on a daily basis. Once we arrive on scene and size-up deems it a critical call, we advise dispatch and a tac channel is assigned or if the call sounds bad enough to start with, dispatch will go ahead and assign the tac channel. Sound and clarity are of the best quality, I am not sure of what frequency we are on, but I would say either 800 or 900mhz.

Take care and stay safe,

Todd

[Niftymedi911]

Lee County Public Safety utilizes the: Astro Motorola 800 Mhz Digital / Simulcasted / Trunked system. We have 24 tower sites throughout the county. Our radios aren't geared for interoperability between Fire-Rescue / Police / LCSO / EMS. We have our EMS-DIS channel which has only but all of 911 EMS traffic, we have 4 EMS tach channels and over 25 county-wide tach channels in which Fire- Rescue / Police / LCSO also have. We also have numerours federal and local government tach channels, as well as state wide Fire Hail / LEO Hail etc. Unless we are on a County-wide tach channel we cannot communicate between the different agencies. Which royall sucks ass when it comes to certain things. When asked, Lee Control ( Lee County Communications Call sign) says we are interoperable when we use the county-wide tach channels but will not allow EMS and fire radios to have the channel. As far as recpition, it sucks in buildings (even with the upgrade in reception available from Motorola factory for use in buidlings) and in the extreme rural areas of our county, otherwise, our radios work in both Charlotte County to the north and Collier County to the south. With 21 independent fire districts, 4 PD depts. 1 Sherrif's office numerous county public works agencies, it tends to get kinda hairy. Considering we only have 1 EMS dispatcher for 33 units 24 / 7 and 4 Fire - Rescue dispatchers, it does get kinda hairy at times. LCSO ( "Lee County" call sign) is the PPSAP and Fire / EMS ("Lee Control") is the SPSAP.