Schenectady County NY Fire Channels ???

[zerg901]

The database shows one channel for Fire Dispatch. But the county website says that there are 5 dispatch centers. Do all 5 dispatchers battle it out on the one fire dispatch channel? Or are all fire calls dispatched from one fire dispatch center - and police calls are dispatched from 5 police dispatch centers?

Peter sz

 

[58006]

Schenectady

http://www.nf2g.com/scannist/ny_sche/County Public Safety.html

 

[studgeman]

Yes All dispatch centers utilize the same fire Dispatch Channel

 

[zerg901]

Just to clarify - 460.575 is the Fire Dispatch Channel - and this is the channel where the fire pagers are activated. If one dispatch center is paging out a call, the other 4 dispatch centers have to wait. Right? Peter sz

 

[studgeman]

That is correct, but loading on the channel is not a problem. Remember too that because of mutual aid agreements each dispatch can tone-out every other department and most have the ability to "stack" the tones, where they send multiple series of tones and then just one voice message. There isnt a "battle" as you put it for the channel.

 

[zerg901]

Ah - very good - thanks for the info.

Here in the Boston MA area, there are no FDs that are dispatched by more than one dispatch center. The Schenectady County dispatch scheme is much different than the Boston area dispatch scheme. Peter sz

 

[studgeman]

In New York, we have county government and most public safety is arranged at the county level. Thats the big diffrence. Most counties have a single consolidated 911 dispatch center in New York. Some counties with larger cities, Onandaga, Albany, Monroe, Schenectady.... Have local dispatch centers also.

 

[kc2kvz]

Schenectady county does not have central dispatch, so, yes, sometimes there is a delay in departments being dispatched by the 4 fire control centers (Niskayuna, Glenville, Rotterdam and Princetown) especially during a weather event. The fifth center is the city fire department which has it's own frequency and rarely appears on the county channel.