Rochester, NY - Watchdog report: Radio work worries firefighters

[ff-medic]

snapple4th very well said

Fire ground channels should always be simplex.

David

"Should always be simplex".


Wrong. The fireground size and shape is not always the same size. Especially when you have a fire in the original structure, and that fire makes its way to surrounding "Exposures" ( adjacent buildings). A firefighting team may be on the opposite side of the structure.....and simplex ( non-repeater comms ) may not make it around to the other side of the building.

Standing at the front side of a building that is side "A" ( Police soometimes use this as Side 1)
To the left is Side "B" ( #2 side to Police )
Rear of the building is "C" ( #3 for Police)
And viewing the right side is "D" ( Number 4 side for Police )

A firefighting team on the "C" side may find it hard to communicate with the Incident Commander
due to natural barriers, large electrical energy ( Ex = transformer - phone room ) , shielded rooms that may contain computers - X-Ray equipment such as a hospital - sensitive documents and maybe tapes.

I could go on and on as to barriers in buildings that prevent, or hinder Simplex radio communications.

The multistory building made with steel, or aluminum, or a combination of the two.

Fireground frequencies can vary, and you can have just one fireground frequency, or ten fireground frequencies depending on the agency and size of the department, and response area. In those fireground frequencies you can mix and match. Simplex , Simplex / Duplex, or all duplex.

Fireground frequencies do no good if you cannot communicate. Use a portable repeater on the fireground, or use the existing agency hilltop and building repeaters.

The ultimate goal is communication during an emergency, and to do this preferably without conegsting the primary Fire and or EMS channel. From my experience, since some scenes are "Spread out" ( brush fires, building fires, search and rescue, mutual aid response ) there is alot of times, a need for fireground frequencies to go through the repeater.

FF - Medic !!!

 

[ff-medic]

I have sat here and read through the whole thread. Like a limited few on here that have been inside a burning building, unless you have been there you have no idea what to expect.

Getting water on the fire. Hit the fire with water, now vision went from 2" in front of the mask to nothing, because when you hit the fire through the smoke - you got "Steam Conversion" and all of it hit your mask. The only thing you can see is tiny water droplets all over the front of your SCBA mask

With your bunker gear on, you head into the maze and search for the dull red glow for the source of the smoke and heat..

As I said above. Inside a burning structure and it is all smoke, you cannot see a thing. Doing your "Figure Eights" with your fire hose, and finally = SWOOOOOOSH , a blast of steam crowds your SCBA mask.

All the time dragging that small lifeline of a hose with you and your partner. Suddenly there is a crash and the ceiling just came down all around you.

Now what do you do?

And as I have said before.....ALOT of people have no idea what we do. Public Safety ( Fire / EMS / Police) is not what it is all cracked up to be.

The fire chief in his wise stand many years ago took the position that your radio will not be kept in an outside pocket of your bunker gear. It needs as much protection from the heat as you do. He either has the bunker gear made with an inside pocket for the radio or you wear it on your hip. The speaker mic is run inside the bunker gear. Just the mic is hanging on the neck flap of you bunker gear.

Sometime ago, maybe I would have agreed with you. But just as fast as SCBA design changes, so does the design of "Bunker Gear". Manupulating a radio with gloves on is hard and sometimes really difficult. Radio in the outside flap, and maybe the microphone clipped just outside the coat. It might get wet, but if you have a good portable ( the good ones we use, proofed to U.S. Govt standards - and ability to withstand dust and water submersion) then a portable radio on the outside of your gear should be no problem.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that that radio is your lifeline to help. It needs as much protection as you do.

I carry a radio and flashlight at all times, daylight or dark. It has been that way with me for many-many years


.

Those departments that just drop it into an outside pocket of your bunker gear have never been in a location where the heat has got so high that it has turned the faceplate of your SCBA dark or caused cracks to show up.

If it ever gets that hot, that my "Attack Line" cannot protect me and keep me cool enough ( keep large amount of heat to my front) to protect my SCBA mask, I need to get out of that structure.

I don't know of a radio being made today that doesn't have the time out feature included with it. But there are many radio shops that just don't take the time to program the radio with EVERY CHANNEL to have the time out timer active. This boils down to very poor control by the management over who is actually programming the radios and how they are programmed. .

I have heard some really long winded conversations on the radio, THAT needed to be broadcasted. I most always say a length of sentence ( radio broadcast ) and then I say "Break".

Saying "Break" helps the listener "digest" what has been said instead of broadcasting alot of info at once, and the person on the receivng end not "getting all" the info. It happens. A large speech at once, one large paragraph broadcased, and it is not remembered, or forgotten, no properly "processed" by the person receiving...and some parts of the radio conversation may be forgotton, misunderstood, or not heard.

Do what ever it takes to resolve your department's problem with stuck mics. It can be fixed very easily.

I believe it to be simple common sense. "Stuck Mikes" usually is because some is careless with their radio. Placing it, or positioning it where the "Transmit" button can be pushed.

Making changes in the fire service are like trying to pull a mule to the water and making him drink.

NFPA makes changes as they see fit, and they are not hard to impliment. As long as the changes start at the "PROPER" authority ( Department Chief or Deputy Chief & NFPA ) to make the change, then there is no problem.


FF - Medic !!!

 

[ff-medic]

As far a budgetary issues, you simply cant place a price on safety.

Safety....For yourself and your partner. First Priority is the protection of life, then the protection of property. In a fire - evacuate the people inside / pull the people inside out - THEN you worry about saving the structure or property. THERE is no price that can be placed on the life of Fire and EMS personnel. NONE whatsoever. Communications , both verbal : face to face, and radio communications is essential.

While one can't solely rely on a radio to be safe, many things make up your safety matrix. In a sad majority of firefighter injuries and fatalities, lack of communication is often cited as a chief factor. Nonsense that a 1K piece of equipment isn't important.

As evident by 9-1-1 ( September 11th ) and other emergencys involving Firefighters. One event I watched a few years ago, the radios were all evidently on simplex. One side of the building could not talk to the I.C. ( Incident Commander ) , and the overhall team on the second floor could not communicate to the I.C. Just because ther is not a fire, does not mean that a medical emergency could not occur, structural collapse, irate citizen or building occupant / owner, or a host of other problems. Some large metropolitan cities I know do not issue radios to everyone, but I believe that everyone needs a portable radio.

As far as the rant of incident command, vectors, strike teams, nfpa, dod, niosh, fbi, cia. This all BS. To place any responsibility on one person or line officers is BS, as it is everyone's responsibility on the fire ground for each others safety. .

It is "Public Safety" , everyone looks out for one another, their safety and security - We are all one big family ( few people see that ).

But as I have said before, the ultimate blame for anything "Gone Wrong" goes ultimately to the Incident Commander ( I.C.) . The I.C. is ( most times ) the senior person on scene. They are responsible for the Firefighters, EMS, Apparatus, and overall event. If someone is wreckless, or disobeys the I.C. adn their instructions....then I believe that the I.C. should be spared in any discipline action. But all in all, the Incident Commander is the one whom ALL responsiblity falls upon, and as such should be the one to whom has to answer "For the bad things" when they occur.

Most of these agencies and rule makers are just blowhards for industry and simply base findings on who stuffs their pockets the most. ALA, P25, which single handily is the biggest waste of money and time ever imagined, especially in the fire service.

A lot of people made money, and communications are more disjointed between agencies than before P25 was implemented. How does that grab ya?

There are bad communications companies, and their are good ones. There are ones that mislead you, and ones that will tell you the truth. THERE are radio compaines that do so well sales wise, they don't need to lie or manupulate.

FF - Medic !!!

 

[902]

Gentlemen,

Keep your eyes on NFPA 1802.

In as far as stuck "RSMs" (remote speaker mics), some very prominent cases have been because the insulation burned/melted away on the RSMs and the radio failed into a stuck mic condition. This ultimately timed-out, then could not be recovered. Very regrettably, this condition occurred in two recent LODDs, and was a driving factor in creating 1802, which would detail performance specifications and characteristics of transceivers carried into IDLH environments.

The problem is that for many years, certainly as long as I was an active firefighter, a radio was a radio. The firefighter got whatever cops got. Maybe DPW got something a little scaled back from what they got, but essentially the same item. Eighteen years ago, that's exactly what my old department did. Cops got MTS2000, fire got MT2000 because we didn't need the scrambling the cops got, and DPW got HT1000. If it had red lights it got a Spectra. If it had amber lights, it got a Maxtrac. Some departments on a budget would get warehouse radios that could be programmed up on frequency, and I'd bet the guys who are active these days know one or two volunteers who carry a $50 Chinese radio. Virtually none of those devices (or their competitors' equivalent products) were specifically engineered to be in a hazard zone.

Here's the lesson learned: The environment these things are carried into induces the failures. When a device is built to withstand those environmental factors, the susceptibility to failure will decrease and the reliability will increase. The cost, however, may substantially increase. It's a cost of doing business. The bottom line here is that we need to send our people back home the way they got to the scene and they need the right tools in order to do that.

As far as digital protocols, it's a fact of life. As we move forward, like it or not, everything will migrate toward digital because of the reduction in occupied bandwidth or some form of multiplexing scheme. This will become more evident over time. It needs to be managed by the fire service, or else others (who never have gone in and have gotten their firematic training by watching Backdraft and Emergency! reruns) will be giving us products saying it's "the latest and greatest," and it's for YOU!

 

[ff-medic]

Gentlemen,

Keep your eyes on NFPA 1802.

In as far as stuck "RSMs" (remote speaker mics), some very prominent cases have been because the insulation burned/melted away on the RSMs and the radio failed into a stuck mic condition. This ultimately timed-out, then could not be recovered. Very regrettably, this condition occurred in two recent LODDs, and was a driving factor in creating 1802, which would detail performance specifications and characteristics of transceivers carried into IDLH environments.

The problem is that for many years, certainly as long as I was an active firefighter, a radio was a radio. The firefighter got whatever cops got. Maybe DPW got something a little scaled back from what they got, but essentially the same item. Eighteen years ago, that's exactly what my old department did. Cops got MTS2000, fire got MT2000 because we didn't need the scrambling the cops got, and DPW got HT1000. If it had red lights it got a Spectra. If it had amber lights, it got a Maxtrac. Some departments on a budget would get warehouse radios that could be programmed up on frequency, and I'd bet the guys who are active these days know one or two volunteers who carry a $50 Chinese radio. Virtually none of those devices (or their competitors' equivalent products) were specifically engineered to be in a hazard zone.

Here's the lesson learned: The environment these things are carried into induces the failures. When a device is built to withstand those environmental factors, the susceptibility to failure will decrease and the reliability will increase. The cost, however, may substantially increase. It's a cost of doing business. The bottom line here is that we need to send our people back home the way they got to the scene and they need the right tools in order to do that.

As far as digital protocols, it's a fact of life. As we move forward, like it or not, everything will migrate toward digital because of the reduction in occupied bandwidth or some form of multiplexing scheme. This will become more evident over time. It needs to be managed by the fire service, or else others (who never have gone in and have gotten their firematic training by watching Backdraft and Emergency! reruns) will be giving us products saying it's "the latest and greatest," and it's for YOU!

A PDF sheet - give it time to open :

http://www.vertexstandard.com/lmr/d...+-+032014.pdf&FileContentType=application/pdf' target='_blank

Intrinsically Safe
Intrinsically safe models are SGS certified to the requirements of ANSI/UL913 5th Edition for use in Class I, II, III, Division 1; Groups C, D, E, F, G; Temp T3C hazardous locations.

FF - Medic !!!