IPN & RR Partnership

[Citywide173]

While I shared this in another thread that got pruned, I understand what the poster is saying.

I used to dispatch for IPN, and had an incident where a department had a gas fed fire and the IC called for a second alarm. The dispatcher specifically asked the IC if he wanted a HAZ-MAT response, and he said no, he wanted a STRUCTURAL second alarm response. IPN didn't seem to think my 2nd alarm page was accurate, so they took it upon themselves to change it to a Haz-Mat page......well, I got a call the next day from that Deputy (he was a friend) asking me who the **** I thought I was to second guess him and call it a Haz-Mat, since my dispatch number was on the page. I brought this to IPN's attention, and their answer was "we decide what the incident is, not the chief on scene".

I understand that the poster's comments about the pickiness could be construed two ways, but I wanted to provide an example of what they meant. Quality control is a good thing, but it can be taken to an extreme. In the defense of IPN, I shared this story with them at their booth at the Firehouse Expo in 2008, and they told me that the person that I had the issue with was no longer there, so I'm not sure if it's gotten better for the dispatchers or not.

 

[scannerbuff123]

While I shared this in another thread that got pruned, I understand what the poster is saying.

I used to dispatch for IPN, and had an incident where a department had a gas fed fire and the IC called for a second alarm. The dispatcher specifically asked the IC if he wanted a HAZ-MAT response, and he said no, he wanted a STRUCTURAL second alarm response. IPN didn't seem to think my 2nd alarm page was accurate, so they took it upon themselves to change it to a Haz-Mat page......well, I got a call the next day from that Deputy (he was a friend) asking me who the **** I thought I was to second guess him and call it a Haz-Mat, since my dispatch number was on the page. I brought this to IPN's attention, and their answer was "we decide what the incident is, not the chief on scene".

I understand that the poster's comments about the pickiness could be construed two ways, but I wanted to provide an example of what they meant. Quality control is a good thing, but it can be taken to an extreme. In the defense of IPN, I shared this story with them at their booth at the Firehouse Expo in 2008, and they told me that the person that I had the issue with was no longer there, so I'm not sure if it's gotten better for the dispatchers or not.

Its still the same bs after bs over there.Still begin picky about certain things.

 

[webstar22]

While I shared this in another thread that got pruned, I understand what the poster is saying.

I used to dispatch for IPN, and had an incident where a department had a gas fed fire and the IC called for a second alarm. The dispatcher specifically asked the IC if he wanted a HAZ-MAT response, and he said no, he wanted a STRUCTURAL second alarm response. IPN didn't seem to think my 2nd alarm page was accurate, so they took it upon themselves to change it to a Haz-Mat page......well, I got a call the next day from that Deputy (he was a friend) asking me who the **** I thought I was to second guess him and call it a Haz-Mat, since my dispatch number was on the page. I brought this to IPN's attention, and their answer was "we decide what the incident is, not the chief on scene".

I understand that the poster's comments about the pickiness could be construed two ways, but I wanted to provide an example of what they meant. Quality control is a good thing, but it can be taken to an extreme. In the defense of IPN, I shared this story with them at their booth at the Firehouse Expo in 2008, and they told me that the person that I had the issue with was no longer there, so I'm not sure if it's gotten better for the dispatchers or not.

perfect example.

 

[rdale]

Just a heads up to anyone thinking of paging incidents on IPN they are very picky and will harass you via email if your page is not 100% up to their standards

Thank goodness... You have no idea how many idiot pages I get from time to time. "Trauma alert" because a person tried to commit suicide but failed, and is fine and in police custody. Dispatcher must have thought "mental trauma"? Got a crime page for a stolen purse once -- am I going to run to my scanner for that?

 

[scantopeka]

Thank goodness... You have no idea how many idiot pages I get from time to time. "Trauma alert" because a person tried to commit suicide but failed, and is fine and in police custody. Dispatcher must have thought "mental trauma"? Got a crime page for a stolen purse once -- am I going to run to my scanner for that?

I suppose it is a matter of opinion, but I think IPN forces their dispatchers to send junk like that because of their dispatch quotas. If you want to maintain a free dispatch account you must send X number of pages a week, if you want to maintain free service you must send more pages. So if you live in a smaller quiet jurisdiction you better send the purse theft because that might be the only incident you have that week.

incidentalerts.com Does not have any quotas or crazy admin emails so far. I have been pretty happy with them, more dispatchers will help make it better hopefully that will come with time.

 

[ScannerSky]

Just to reopen this thread lol - I signed up to become an IPN dispatcher - I am in Morris County, NJ. It seems like a good company...I tried BNN an 1RWN and I think I will enjoy this more just because they teamed up with RR.

 

[SCPD]

That's why i have stopped paging alerts is due to my area it is things people don't want paged warrant pickups fights etc.Unless it is a fire or auto accident.

 

[rdale]

A warrant pickup definitely doesn't qualify as an "alert"...

 

[SouthernStoneCounty]

I checked out Incident Alerts the other night, and it's a good concept. So good in fact, that I've inquired about licensing the software for use on Firepics.net. As far as the current setup, I understand that it's new, but I see them having some problems attracting dispatchers, as there are no incentives, and without dispatchers, that leaves a lot of uncovered territory which means that people are going to become aggravated when they don't receive any pages for their area.

Incentives are not always good. I remember back when IPN dispatchers used to send out fake pages just to bump up their pages for rewards.

 

[Citywide173]

Incentives are not always good. I remember back when IPN dispatchers used to send out fake pages just to bump up their pages for rewards.

I wasn't referring to the rewards program, I was referring more to the fact that there's absolutely nothing to attract someone to dispatch. With IPN, if you dispatch local stuff, you get your local area free (at least it used to be that way), and if you dispatched for the hotline, you received a full membership for free provided that you met the minimum pages, which was very low (10 or so a week) when I dispatched for them. The rewards built from there.

This is setup as a free service, and sometimes free isn't better. Without dispatchers, a notification network just doesn't work. To attract dispatchers, they're going to have to do something to attract them, that's usually having a wide area notification service,,,,,but to get the wide area, they have to have the dispatchers willing to commit. I haven't seen enough pages for my area to indicate that there are enough people signed up to receive the pages, as if there were, I'm sure at least some of them would be paging incidents, which might get me on board to dispatch if I didn't already have a business model in place (the software is being added to Firepics.net as a free perk for board members). This is in no way meant as a slam against the system, or those volunteering to dispatch for the system, but an observation based from many years of dealing with numerous local and nationwide paging services.

 

[ScannerSky]

appreciate the feedback

 

[EdmontonFireRadio]

For those of you that are IPN dispatchers, there is a relatively new dispatch room available. It was originally going to be only for hotline dispatchers but they have made it available to all IPN members.

You can login here - http://beta.incidentpage.net/

 

[SCPD]

For those of you that are IPN dispatchers, there is a relatively new dispatch room available. It was originally going to be only for hotline dispatchers but they have made it available to all IPN members.

You can login here - http://beta.incidentpage.net/

Nice. How'd you find that?

 

[EdmontonFireRadio]

Another dispatcher mentioned it to me, so I asked one of the people within IPN that was handling our dispatcher reward. They confirmed the information.

 

[SCPD]

Another dispatcher mentioned it to me, so I asked one of the people within IPN that was handling our dispatcher reward. They confirmed the information.

Nice! Thanks for link!

 

[RDCat]

good call on the link

 

[EdmontonFireRadio]

No worries. See you guys in the room.

Jeff - ALB001
Edmonton Fire Radio

 

[kg4ojj]

So, I'm NOT an IPN dispatcher.....but I do provide a feed.

With this new partnership, how do I get IPN-dispatched info (e.g., alerts) into the breaking news or status line on my feed?

I know of one IPN dispatcher who depends on my digital trunked feed for dispatching.....yet, I would have to pay for access to IPN ????

Any ideas? I'd like to drive more traffic to my feed and to RR in general...

 

[Fireplug]

Is my Radio Reference ID the same as my Radio Reference User Name? If not, where do I find my ID?

 

[mkescan]

Some IPN dispatchers in Wisconsin just steal info from here Wisconsin Incident Alert | Google Groups