Mutual Aid Communications

I know this has been discussed before, but anyone know of any protocol for patching multiple channels together at a major incident?

This morning US Marshals went to serve a warrant in Groton Town, the guy they were after escaped, shots were fired, he fled. PDs on scene were CSP, New London, Waterford, Stonington, Ledyard, Groton City, DEEP, Groton Long Point, Navy Subbase and New Haven (yes New Haven had a K-9 there). Primary communications were on CSP E Dispatch and Groton Town ... but lots of cross chatter on 800mh conventional, VHF, UHF, and some on low-band for the hotline.

I heard no patch of information, lots of delayed relays, and some cops who had to get info via yelling because their portables didn't pick up CSP or Groton Town (like the Groton City cops who can't hear Groton Town and no one having a portable that picked up CSP, except CSP ... and no one has Hotline on a portable).

Has this ever been addressed? When one town (Groton) has PDs operating on 800, VHF and UHF, seems like an officer safety issue to me.

ThIs is a good point. I think that there needs to be more interagency training done. If they are all on 800 MHz then they could activate a 8tac9x channel and communicate. If not then the STOCS system should be implemented. It all depends on the length of the operation. Police incidents are very dynamic and quick acting. Unless it is a prolonged operation. There is a Statewide Interoperability Committee. They should have this all worked out. It needs to be trained on and Implemented.

They, in many cases, don't understand ( a training issue ) the capabilities, or how to use the capabilities of the radios. The very interoperability sought by many, has made their handhelds a more complicated device.

The government drove the whole mess with grant money, which is now gone. Departments would have been better served, operationally, and financially, by concentrating on Bridge technologies. Call it crosstie, cross-band, interconnect,.....whatever. The ability to bridge systems via dispatch console, or field deployable equipment. A city at the foot of a mountain range can use 800 well. The sheriff serving the mountains is better off with VHF lo/hi.

The politicians are either choosing based on kickbacks, or ignorance of the tools needed. Departments no longer have their own radio techs because everything is contracted out. There needs to be communications expertise within the department, both to manage the systems, and train the users, to include recurrent training. The radios should get recurrent training similar to the side arm, or fire training building.

In theory STOCS can tie 800-VHF-UHF, allowing everyone to talk, but most PDs do not have STOCS conventional channels programmed into their radio. I have never really heard STOCS in use outside of training.

Hell, some PDs don't have scan enabled

profiledescent said:

The government drove the whole mess with grant money, which is now gone. Departments would have been better served, operationally, and financially, by concentrating on Bridge technologies. Call it crosstie, cross-band, interconnect,.....whatever. The ability to bridge systems via dispatch console, or field deployable equipment

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This is what I am getting at, it should be entirely dispatcher driven. Cops in the field have their job and dispatchers have their jobs , and in theory all the pieces should work.

They understand fine, they know if you patched CSP, New London, Waterford, Stonington, Ledyard, Groton City, DEEP, Groton Long Point, Navy Subbase, New Haven and USMS together it would have been unusable. This is not an incident for patching, its an incident for a unified command with capabilities to talk on all those channels.

APX,

I know the purpose, however standing between four cops from four agencies , one was getting info from his dispatch, two were relying of word of mouth from other officers, and the other was getting info 45-60 seconds delayed. What happens if they get separated and need assistance? In the case of the New Haven Officer, he could not communicate with anyone local nor reach his own dispatch ... and he was a K-9 officer.

NHPD had the dog and from what I gathered they could not use his available dog because of the radio issue. Seems like an asset issue there if you have the dog but need to call another one because of a communications issue.

Comments here are coming from those who have not worked in public safety, specifically law enforcement - and working in realtime.

APX is correct. Most know of it, but when you are running after a bad guy, most cops are not going to stop (or keep running) and:

1-Pull the radio off the belt
2-Scroll to find the zone key
3-Ooops, went to far, scrolling back one menu item
4-Select the zone
5-Find the right channel
6-Place radio back on belt
7-Resume finding bad guy

USMS typically - if at all - use their own radios, and there is a possibility that they are not within the same band that the locals use. They were heavy on Nextel until it went away, as was the DEA.

Dispatchers, if console equipped could patch in other agencies *if* available, but that's very rare. Many consoles in CT are setup for their own town, and then the regional mutual aid channels as necessary. On top of the patching, they are still handling day to day 911 calls, routine calls, town fire, EMS and sometimes public works. Remember, most *Towns* usually have one dispatcher, maybe two on shift depending on the call volume.

This is all going on in real time. People also assume that a STOCS box is around the corner to be deployed. In small towns, there is typically no one available to leave the scene, go to location X to retrieve said item and come back and set it up. That sort of thing is usually used in long duration incidents.

Could a common channel be used in the meantime? Sure...but not when your taking fire and running. You will be on your primary channels. What you hear on the scanner is only 1/8th of whats going on.

The dispatcher is still taking phone calls from the public, trying to keep tabs on who is doing what at the active incident, being hovered over by a supervisor wanting to know whats going on every 30 seconds, dealing with the public walking in the door, etc etc.

Is it possible that there is no clear established plan of attack? Sure. However, when dealing with realtime incidents, such well laid out plans with bullet points, action plans, 8x10 color glossy's all go to crap when an officer is yelling for help.

I was able to listen in to the complete unedited Manchester shooting. When you break down the radio and phone comms individually, it doesn't seem all that hectic. Bring them all in together in realtime and you still only get 1/2 of whats going on at a console (the ones involved I know personally did an outstanding job in that incident and couldn't have done a better job).

Side point - Where I worked, we had a fire district that thought they were the only game in town while they were on a call. They whined and complained about how they didn't get personal attention during their fire. When it was all said and done and I was told of this, I pulled all the channels that were recorded at the communications center right before and throughout their call. I did individual channels (phones, radios, intercom etc) and let them hear it individually at a training night.

Most people there said to the effect "oh, see not that busy, the dispatcher should have done x/y/z".

After that, I said I have one more tape to play. It was all channels together, in realtime during the first 15min of the call. The chief officers and several firefighters made it a point to take that dispatcher out to dinner and apologized not realizing what was going on. After that, it was department policy to backhand any firefighter or junior officer for giving the dispatchers a hard time over the radio (unless there was a valid complaint).

Let me start off by saying you will never solve the political issues that tend to kill the use of "Interoperability Radio Channels". Unless there is someone on scene with a strong influence over the troops that are participating, it will turn into a Keystone Cop Flick.

The next issue is like has been said, TRAINING. Most LE departments have never had training or very little training on using their radios. Most law enforcement people don't have any clue what channels are in their radios except their main dispatch channels.

The larger departments generally have some sort of mobile command vehicle. That type of vehicle should have been brought into this action as soon as multiple departments started to be involved. Most of these vehicles generally have multiple radios on multiple bands. This allows the patching of multiple bands using a radio interoperability gateway. There are a number of decent gateways on the market today. Which one is better, is going to be based on how it will be used and what features the agency needs.

Let's get back to the radios in use by the troops on the ground out in the field. Unless there was a real political reason not to do it, the "National Interoperability Radio Channels" should be programmed into every radio in use. If this was done or not will depend on what sort of control the department heads placed on their radio system the last time the fleet was programmed. I can tell you there are some real hard headed department heads that won't let these channels be put into any of their radios.

The big issue here is that there was no incident command that was put into place on this outing. Too many departments were there and probably went into a Rambo style operation. The poor dispatchers were abused by having to relay everything from one channel and or telephone to another. This makes for easy loosing of details and getting the messages delayed.

It would have been so much easier to get everybody onto a simplex channel during all this operation. My guess is that all the communications could have been over maybe a mile or so. Even down here in Cajun country, you can do that on 800 MHz. between vehicles.

Did I mention that POLITICS is the worst enemy that any radio communications can have in an emergency. The department heads generally are not out in the field while all this is going on. They only show up for the press conferences. Does that give you any hints on how to function?

Bottom line here is unless you have been out in the field during one of these clusters, you have no idea just how bad communications between different agencies will get. try some pre-planning and drills several times during the year. You would be surprised how smooth it goes the next time something like this works after the drilling.

It is not uncommon to hear about incidents like this all the time. I do travel frequently around the country to different agencies and the PSAP centers. The story is the same all the time. Poor training, the people out in the field don't know what other channels are programmed into their radios and the department heads don't want to work with other departments.

Ahh.. .the 'why cant we talk' discussion... My nemesis!!

Couple of key points.....


On a day to day basis, it should be the responsibility of neighboring departments (Police, Fire and EMS) to take it upon themselves to establish ways to talk to each other - i.e. shared radios, second radios if different bands etc..... it shouldn't take something special to talk to a neighbor.

Next, if a service has a planned event - in this case Marshals serving a warrant, and I'm sure there were representatives from multiple agencies (i.e. task force), they should be able to talk to each other no matter where they move. They should keep the host agency (Town) in the loop, and have one of their point-of-contacts be able to communicate with the host.

STOC's box's are not immediate.... they are for extended operations and only around a relatively small scene area - they are not a wide area solution.

Not everyone works on 800, so a 8tac or CSPERN are out of the question -

Console patches are great - when used correctly - but as also mentioned, do you want to overload systems with "Yea.. I'm three miles away where do you-want me" walking over they guys who have him in site?

PSAP's (Dispatch centers) can/should be all able to communicate - and rebroadcast the most up to date. The only people who should be talking are those directly chasing or in pursuit - when it crosses borders (towns / jurisdictions) different agencies have different policies on how involved they will get.

The guy from New Haven should never have expected his equipment to work out here - should have planned before he left and touched base with someone local for a swap radio.



Everyone has plans for 2nd, 3rd 4th alarms, hazmat, MCI's shootings, hostages, etc... but dont plan for 3rd, 4th and 5th level communications..... And then complain that "Radios Failed".. Radios didnt fail, planning and using them correctly failed... There are plenty of solutions - they just have to ask for them...... They choose to make things a different priority...

How many agencies (Fire Police EMS) actually do drills WITH RADIOs- finding your home channel in the dark with a gloved hand??? Finding the "Interop" channels for the 'big one'.

There is always much hype on "interoperable" (hate that word/phrase) communications - however those who push it, want it, preach it - are usually the vendors.

We have more problems now than before the big digital trunking push (which required its own set of standards that manufacturers keep moving from).

Where I am now, I was tasked with a few other representivites of public safety agencies in my geographic area in coming up with a radio programming template for day to day and mutual aid situations. We mostly work on a statewide digtial system, but utilize conventional analog channels for onscene communications.

In the course of almost a year - we ended up with 7-8 zones, 16 channels each (for the most part).

That's a potential of 128 channels.

I fought tooth and nail to shrink that down, but powers that be are under the impression that we need regional channels for areas on the opposite side of the state (many, many hours drive and if we deploy there, it will be on national news for awhile).

Do you know how often we change channels or need to on a daily or even monthly basis?

About two times. One channel to talk to the dispatchers and the other for on scene simplex communications.

Do you know how many times that we need to go to another agency channel?

About zero.

Do all my people know how to get to the "interop" channels? Yes they do. Is it smooth? Nope. Is its a training issue? No. Its a "we have way too many of these" issue.

One of the issues we brought up - how many people actually NEED to be on these channels? The answer is "it depends". It depends on the incident, the purpose and the agency type. Do we need 50 firefighters on a channel? Maybe not. Incident command officers? Most likely. No one wants to carry more than one radio, talk on multiple, but that's how it needs to be done.

Now you come into funding. The average price of a digital radio, single band still runs 1-3k depending on required options. Add in multi band, or additional radios, that's 3-8k per vehicle or outfitted person. This is money that some agencies don't have.

And you can only talk on one at a time.

This is where a good COML comes in (major/prolonged incident) with a unified command. However, you still need multiple radios, multiple people to handle all the various tasks and groups.

It is not a one sized fits all setup.

A neat little video from LAFD. A real light taste of an ICP starts at the 7:20 mark, but listening to what we have to think of on the way to the call, hearing whats going, etc is part of the size up with limited options:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv1OzPxBC84

If you have ever been on the scene of a FDNY call, especially with the Command Tactical Unit, its not a one man shop. Even just operating on the UHF channels, the chiefs and CTU is on VHF, Citywide and borough commands, possibly the 800 system and then setting up data, cameras, phones if needed, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdt9_DnzE84
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we1a29d8ymU

I use these for fire service training - view a few of them....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eGFlo1uapQ

Youtube has some good incident audio that goes from normal to crap in half a second. Try to apply some of the statements and comments to these situations on trying to change channels, fault real time incidents and going to these situations, etc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xiHcb8TAXQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk80aXNThqc

/soapbox

Most likely mutual aid communications has already been discussed and procedures set up and published. Unfortunately, the publication has most likely also been thrown in the bottom of some drawer someplace and nobody remembers what the procedures are or even where the publication on them has been thrown. Not to mention the lack of either being updated when systems were upgraded, bands changed, etc. Unfortunately, mutual aid is treated as simply a checkbox item and once the box is checked, it is forgotten about.

hi all WINDSOR locks fire was using stocs vhf vtac patch to utac to due to the fireworks and having warehouse point fire on scene w uhf radios so they patch the two together so warehouse fire could stay w there uhf radios and talk to WLKS fire on vhf

East windsor departments always had VHF radios (at least chiefs and trucks) to talk to WLFD

I heard them say shutting Down stocs ch

PJH said:

If you have ever been on the scene of a FDNY call, especially with the Command Tactical Unit, its not a one man shop. Even just operating on the UHF channels, the chiefs and CTU is on VHF, Citywide and borough commands, possibly the 800 system and then setting up data, cameras, phones if needed, etc.

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I used to work EMS in NYC, and worked as a news photog in NYC for many years, having grown up there. I know it is not a one man shop.

I am also not really looking at officers switching channels, I am looking more for a a dispatcher (and I know how hard they work) or some incident command to patch info, or become a central hub for information. I am well aware of the issues of everyone talking over each other and info being lost, so a one-way pipe for info to flow outwards to the field, so everyone (or at least most people) hears the info, not the second hand info, allows for a response that is less chaotic.

Officer safety is a priorty, and reducing chaos aids in that.

At least dispatch centers can almost all communicate on CSP, or listen to CSP. NL & Wtfd can come and go from each other's channels ... and do with some regularity ... but that's about it . As I said originally, Groton is a total cluster f&^k with Town PD on 800 conventional, City PD on VHF and Long Point PD on UHF. It is all within in a single defined town.

I agree that a Dispatch solution in an emergency is better than having the officer have to change channels Dispatchers need to take charge and control like air traffic controllers.
A good dispatcher will control the situation and have routine traffic move to another channel.
When mutual aid is coming they should cross patch if they have the capability. One important facts to remember is that the cross patched agency needs to be on a different channel than their main operations or you will be tying up that channel also.
That is why a STOCS solution is good. The end users radios should all have the respective STOCS channels in them and they need to train on using them.
NIMS is also important for everyone not just to know but to use.
Agencies that work together regularly need to have these solutions in place and everyone needs to know when and how to use them.[emoji298]

There are two issues here that are sort of intermingled depending on experience or point of view. Active situations and extended incidents.

Also comes back to capabilities of the agency.

Far too often I see on radio boards people (not nessesarly this thread but generalizing) think of what should be done in active situations but using extended incident solutions.

PJH

What I am addressing directly is live dynamic situations, not extended operations.

If you have, for example, U.S. Marshals chasing a guy with Town Police, and shots were fired, this is obviously a dynamic situation not an extended operation. But this dynamic situation is one that is dangerous and not only puts the public at risk, it puts officers at risk. That lack of communication is a real issue, what if a Navy SubBase officer was the one who ended up spotting the perp and got involved with them? They would need to relay the base, the base can't operate on the local channel, they'd need to pick up a phone and call Groton Town, who would then have to go over the air to their officers and relay info, with other dispatchers either hearing it and notifying or using the phone then have it go over the air.

If you were a cop in that situation, would you want that as your back up communications when you needed help?

sefrischling said:

PJH

What I am addressing directly is live dynamic situations, not extended operations.

If you have, for example, U.S. Marshals chasing a guy with Town Police, and shots were fired, this is obviously a dynamic situation not an extended operation. But this dynamic situation is one that is dangerous and not only puts the public at risk, it puts officers at risk. That lack of communication is a real issue, what if a Navy SubBase officer was the one who ended up spotting the perp and got involved with them? They would need to relay the base, the base can't operate on the local channel, they'd need to pick up a phone and call Groton Town, who would then have to go over the air to their officers and relay info, with other dispatchers either hearing it and notifying or using the phone then have it go over the air.

If you were a cop in that situation, would you want that as your back up communications when you needed help?

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Excellent point and everyone on this topic brings up valid issues which are good.i know this idea would probably never happen that i'm bringing up but i'm big into scanning and i follow barnstable county ( cape cod ) on the feeds and when i vacation there i have my scanners ( yes i bring my hobby with me on vacations,there is no vacation from scanning. Lol) but if new london county or any county for that matter had their system where cape cod uses the 15 frequencies and each fire,pd and state pd troop had their own radio id along with incident talk groups etc then it would work out much better,but we know thats not going to happen at least anytime soon.