There is one "member" of this CW1NY group who has a history of living in a dream world, going back 30 years or more when he was an Auxiliary Fireman in the Bronx, and trying to play "real' fireman, even as an adult. Now he's retired from what was at one time a respectable non-uniformed supervisory position in a major first responder agency, all thanks to Civil Service, not because he was any better than anyone else.
There's another "official" of that group who WAS an FDNY fireman at one time, but, to be polite, he left under a cloud, as they say.
Maybe at least these two are trying to live the dream world they never had.
They makes this CW1NY sound like THE answer to everything since 9/11, when, in fact, pagers, the availability of portable radios, as well as even AM news radio, etc, has made their latest "toy" obsolete.
The other radio groups in and around NYC make no qualms about what they call themselves: generally they are buff group, and nothing much more. They operate as buffs, don't try to come off as something they are not, and use the radio for the information of other buffs interesting in the same things, as well as a form of communications between themselves. They are not in competition with any other group, especially any group who has to advertise themselves as being almost one step short of being a city...or state...agency, with a management and "command" and "professional" setup rivaling those same agencies.
With that said, buffing, as anyone who has been around a long time will tell you, is all over now. The fires have all but stopped, and "quick" notifications of "nothing" jobs sometimes requires no notification at all. Any job of any significance is easily found out about, and in a timely manner, if you really want or need to know about it, regardless if you have the latest Motorola radio in your hands, a pager on your belt, or a cell phone in your pocket.
It's just a matter of how interested you want to be.......or what you want people to think you are or what you want to believe you are.