Sea Girt Fire Dispatch

[DJ88]

I just caught the tail end of a message that went out over the Sea Girt Fire channel. The dispatcher told all fire department members to provide their cell phone numbers and carriers as the new E dispatch system is in place, or at least it sounded like she said E dispatch system. Has anyone ever heard of this, and if so, do you know what it's all about? Thanks.

[countryboy879]

yes e-dispatch is when you get the fire call over your phone.....the way it sounds when is goes over the pager it will sound that way over the phone. it comes to you in a voice mail i believe.

[countryboy879]

eDispatches | Text Message Dispatching Services is the web site check it out!

[fineshot1]

Originally Posted by countryboy879

yes e-dispatch is when you get the fire call over your phone.....the way it sounds when is goes over the pager it will sound that way over the phone. it comes to you in a voice mail i believe.

Its a text message service only for cell phones with the text message service subscribed to, not voice mail as that would be extremely latent in getting a fire call page out.

[DJ88]

Thanks all for the input.

[jaymatt1978]

Just so everybody understands this eDispatches system is used along with the traditional paged messages that you can hear over the scanner. It's neat because a person gets a text and can reply that he or she is responding via cellphone. My town just started using it!

[robbinsj2]

"E-dispatch" is a pretty general term, without any additional information it could be either of the suggestions covered above. eDispatches, the company/service, supplies a computer and scanner which monitor the dispatch frequency for the tone sequence, record the dispatch, and forward it to a server which then texts subscribers that there is a dispatch. Subscribers can call in and listen to the recording.

Response coordination and, I believe, transcription are options, if not for eDispatches then for a competing service. Speed is reasonably good, our members often get the notification before they get out the door. There are, however, very many places in this process where something could go wrong.

Text messages straight from the CAD system should be preferable for notification purposes but aren't made available by all dispatch centers.

Jim

[DJ88]

Originally Posted by robbinsj2

"E-dispatch" is a pretty general term, without any additional information it could be either of the suggestions covered above. eDispatches, the company/service, supplies a computer and scanner which monitor the dispatch frequency for the tone sequence, record the dispatch, and forward it to a server which then texts subscribers that there is a dispatch. Subscribers can call in and listen to the recording.

Response coordination and, I believe, transcription are options, if not for eDispatches then for a competing service. Speed is reasonably good, our members often get the notification before they get out the door. There are, however, very many places in this process where something could go wrong.

Text messages straight from the CAD system should be preferable for notification purposes but aren't made available by all dispatch centers.

Jim

Just to clarify. will I still be able to monitor the dispatches on my scanners?

[robbinsj2]

Most definitely. None of these systems are reliable and/or quick enough to supplant traditional paging (and eDispatches relies upon traditional paging to start the process).

[Bote]

Moreover, in a widespread emergency like a land-falling storm or civil unrest it is possible that the cellular system is so overloaded with people calling and texting each other that the SMS or MMS message gets delayed in a queue. I have had routine alerts from my stock trading system show up in my e-mail inbox almost instantly while the companion MMS page took 20-30 minutes on several occasions.

No guarantees, which is why they emphasize that it is a backup to your primary alerting system.

[Tech792]

Yet another innovation for fire & ems:

IamResponding.com

[Devilz311]

Originally Posted by Tech792

Yet another innovation for fire & ems:

IamResponding.com

We've been using IamResponding for a few months now. It works well for a volunteer Squad/Department that does not have members stationed at the building. The scheduling display is also pretty useful.