Baltimore County EOC Problems?

[mlevin]

Has anyone else noticed that all the FD and PD dispatchers sound like they are using portable radios to dispatch? Does anyone know what is going on?

 

[mlevin]

Sounds like they were using the backup EOC in Gilroy. They just made an announcment that they are moving back to Towson. I wonder why the dispatchers audio qualityu was so muffeled. It sounded like they were using portables

 

[MCMD5]

From another forum.


Dispatch is NOT moving out of Towson. The back up center if just that. It's a back up center and it will be used for any jurisdiction that needs to use it in the future. Dispatch will be moving TEMPORARILY to Gilroy so that major renovations can be done to the Towson location.

 

[mlevin]

I think today was a test of the new center. They already moved back to Towson.

EDIT: Unless I'm misunderstanding you, didn't they already do the renovations at Towson?

 

[MCMD5]

I think today was a test of the new center. They already moved back to Towson.

EDIT: Unless I'm misunderstanding you, didn't they already do the renovations at Towson?

The person made that post at 3:30 yesterday. I have no idea what is going on there I was just passing along a post I read.

 

[ocguard]

On Sunday, they were testing the back-up center in preparation for a long-term move while there are major renovations done to the Towson Court Building center. As anyone who knows anything about the Towson Court Building center knows, it is in terrible need of work. There is mold growing in the ventilation ducts, dust bunnies that would scare my 100 pound dog, consoles and furniture that are literally falling apart, lighting that makes the Bat Cave look like a major league ballpark, etc. In addition, I believe that there will be upgrades to the radio consoles. BCo is currently still using CentraCom II push-button consoles, for which parts are very hard to come by. I'd imagine that there will be upgrades to CentraCom Elite PC-based radios. I'm not sure if they are upgrading the Central Electronics Bank in anticipation of a possible future digital migration.

Last I knew, the back-up center is equipped with mobile radios set up as base stations for use as dispatch consoles. The phone system is limited. There is a CADS system present, but from the sound of Sunday's test [manual operations], it's not operational yet. Just before I left the center, they had installed a Zetron panel for low band paging, but there was not yet a MOSCAD terminal for career stations. So it'll be intersting to see how functional dispatch will be while they're at Gilroy. It'll be a trying time, no doubt.

 

[mlevin]

Thanks, for the info Matt. That makes things more clear.

 

[ChattyKathy]

The "long-term" move from Towson to Gilroy is estimated to take about 2 or 3 weeks. The CAD system on Sunday was operational, and dispatch was NOT using manual operations except for like 30 mins during shift change.