Pager & radio testing; how much is really neccesary??

[HowD]

When I worked as a police dispatcher, we were responsible to test and report any defective equipment. The first Sunday of each month we tested the backup 911 system. The reason why it was just once per month was that it required a re-routing of all 911 so that they came in on the backup positions. Was it a pain? You bet. We had no caller info, just regular phone lines and everything was handwritten on cards.

Was it necessary? Yes. If a cut-over was necessary and the backup system didn't work, lawsuits or not, people wouldn't get the help they needed.

By testing, you can establish a baseline as to the last known time when something was functioning OK. The departments have no way of knowing what calls will come in later and/or when they may need to use certain equipment. The regular dispatch consoles computerized; they were "soft" programmed in that you could change to any channel from any position. If we know that something was working OK at a certain time, and then not working sometime later, the technicians could go back into the logs and attempt to troubleshoot.

Theories are great, but I'm telling you what facts we were given when I was dispatching for the City of Philadelphia Police Department, the fourth largest metropolitan police agency in the United States.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

You are exactly on target. You want to make sure things are in proper working order which is of the highest priority when someone's life is at risk. Some of these people act like they test as radio system for the sole purpose of annoying scanner listeners. I don't mind radio tests one bit. It's part of our interests here and besides, if you people are are so upset by radio tests, just hit scan or lock out the "offending" channel.

 

[hfxChris]

The fire agency here is divided up into two "regions" consisting of the core (city) and rural stations.
They don't do pager/toner tests for the core stations except by request, simply because they're so busy they already get toned out many many times a day.
The rural stations on the other hand, where things are volunteer based and are much less busy - in some areas a station can go 2-3 days without a call, they do pager tests every night at 7pm.