Orange County NY 911

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captncarp

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About a year ago there were headlines that the county had Fed money for a all new radio system for FD,PD and EMS.
What is the status of it now? A lot of the county PD is on NYCOMCOS EDACS system which is absolete.
Is NYCOMCO going to move them all to another system?
 

captncarp

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And who is going to use this system when it is up and running? Have Departments committed to it?
Or is this going to be one more tier to add to all the systems in play now.
 

APX8000

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ALL of Police, Fire and EMS will be switching. Fire and EMS paging will remain on the existing VHF frequencies, but will be simulcasted from all the towers. That project is behind schedule as well. Fireground will be on the existing UHF channel plan. Sounds just like Rockland County to me...
 

captncarp

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Well that is a plus, going from four tiers down to two. If it happens. The 911 system is very hap hazards. I hope it is all going to improve this time around.
 

Comspec333

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The Orange County system will be for all public safety and will likely load public service onto the system after initial loading. The system is expected to go live late 2016, early 2017. the NYCOMCo EDACS in Orange County as well as all the VHF (except the paging, as noted) and low band will come off the air after the system is fully loaded.
 

captncarp

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Is the whole system going to be encripted so the screw ups are not noticiible to the public?
Up to now Orange 911 hasn't gotten very high marks pretty amature.
When emergency calls are being dispatched loud talking and laughing in the background drowning out the dispatch so the receiver has to ask for a repeat (it doesn't take a engineer to correct that, hang some cheap rugs from walmart on the walls to absorb the sound). Whole system down for long periods of time. Lack of info from call takers for the responders. Up to now it has not been in the same league with other county 911 systems.
I hope I don't offend but like the politician says (lets look at the record).
 

PJH

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Sounds like you have zero experience in the emergency services field and just using a scanner.

OC911 is actually a very good center considering all of the individual politics and agencies they have to deal with. The dispatchers are top notch for all they do have to deal with. Not every center is perfect.

If you have suggestions, feel free to apply to OC911 and get experience and help out and get paid for it.
 

APX8000

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PJH, that is NOT what the people in the field think. Talk to the agencies that get dispatched by them (like the cops on the road) and they will tell you otherwise. Talk to the PDs that have their own dispatch and they will also tell you otherwise. Many of them keep logs to keep track of all the mistakes. No, it's not everyone...there are some really good people there. But you have to look at the history of 911 in the County to get a bigger picture. Politics definitely comes into play....the first Commissioner was a General Manager from Frontier who was connected and got her son into NYSP as well. The second was a retired FBI Agent with a retirement gig. The current a retired police Chief with a retirement gig. Do you think they knew or know anything about radio communications? Do they have an engineering background? Same goes with the Supervisors. When they gave the original PSD-I (call taker) PSD-II (dispatcher) and Supervisor tests there was no upward mobility. You did have to have previous experience to be a PSD-II such as dispatcher with NYSPIN certification (already doing it with another agency), volunteer Fire or EMS for a determined number of years, etc. Calltakers though could have been customer service representatives from Walmart and that's where the problem started. And PSD-IIs didn't qualify as Supervisors because you needed supervisory experience....BUT, it didn't have to be in comms. There were those that came from Camp Laguardia where they were a Supervisor and those that came from appliance stores where they were an manager and they were telling the people that have been doing the job for with years of experience how to now do there job. It was a cluster. Eventually the union fought for promotional exams, but then the customer service reps that were Calltakers became dispatchers. You knew who they were just by listening to the radio. Now let's look at their CAD and RMS systems. Original CAD was from Printrak and I know one of the Supervisors at 911 that jumped ship and got a job with them. They are still using that system (bought out by Motorola). Then they decide to get RMS countywide so all the PDs can be on the same page and go with Impact. Do you think they went with VCAD from Impact....nope....still using Printrak. So the systems don't talk to each other which means all the PDs have to re-enter the information from one system to the other. Another cluster.

Sorry to go off topic here but I have a lot more facts that support their problems. Even their new Communications Specialist lacks the experience to run a project this large. Just look at his LinkedIn page. Recent grad two years ago with no engineering experience.


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DaveNF2G

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Laughter and loud noises in the background seem to be endemic in dispatch centers lately. I hear it all the time coming from the various centers around Albany.
 

PJH

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As someone who has worked in the system, and know some of the players. Part forge noise problem is the layout of the work stations which ended up amplifying noises. One place I worked the walls at the work stations bounced sound like you wouldn't believe. However, we were able ton turn around and speakntoneaxh other cordinate responses and resources.

You work with the budget you have in the building process.

Using various computer software is not new. Dispatch centers and its customers will do what they can to streamline. However NYS offers free software (or it was) to police departments as a common system. It's up to the pd if they want to use that or a solution that best fits them.

Also many dispatch centers due to a change of technology are being supported by IT departments vs dedicated radio guys like it use to be. You computer geeks running the show who do not know about radio and do their own thing.
 

APX8000

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Don't even get me started on the software the state offers. Don't know if it's still called Spectrum Justice System (SJS) but regardless it was terrible. We used it for years. As a matter of fact, I've used my share of CAD/RMS from SJS to LEMIS to ALECS
to IMPACT etc and even punched a few cards back in the day. But using different software instead of a particular suite from one vendor does not streamline....It makes it more difficult. If they really wanted to do it right, the would utilize one all encompassing that does everything from CAD to RMS to MDT to AVL instead of patchwork just like their current radio system. You mention budgetary concerns....explain to me how paying a $65 monthly fee per radio to a vendor is more cost effective to talk to 911 on EDACS vs buying the radio outright to talk to 911 on high band.?


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jim202

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Laughter and loud noises in the background seem to be endemic in dispatch centers lately. I hear it all the time coming from the various centers around Albany.

Being able to hear all the conversations going on in the background is a common problem in many dispatch centers. basically it is due to the console mic gains being set way too high. The radio techs that set it up didn't care what was going on and just set it and walked away without doing much testing or listening to see what it sounded like.

My guess is you could talk in a normal voice 3 or 4 feet from the mic and still be heard just fine over the radio. Part of that problem is laziness on the part of the dispatchers not wanting to close talk the mic. If they are using headsets, they again the mic gain is way way too high.

It's all a simple fix, but there has to be a request of the radio techs to make the adjustment.
 
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DaveNF2G

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Again, a technological solution proposed for a behavioral problem.

There should not be laughing and loud talking going on in an emergency dispatch center. That behavior belongs in the break room, isolated from where the work is taking place.
 
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