Rochester, NY - Watchdog report: Radio work worries firefighters

[iamhere300]

Grants are handed out every day. That is what we pay taxs for. Write the Federal Representative that they elected adn ask for help and or guidance in Government Grants. Money is most always there, you just have to know where to go get it = Local - State - Federal - Business / Industry contributions.

FF - Medic !!!

BUT, often the cost share on these grants makes just going out and buying analog radios easier than complying with the terms of the grant and having to purchase P25 radios. (Federal grants such as the AFG, a BIG radio grant source now require P25, and AFG will no longer do systems, just subscriber units)

 

[DaveNF2G]

Those of you who are imputing operational ignorance or inexperience to me are vastly mistaken.

Been there, done that. And yes, the stuck mics happen at all sorts of incidents. They also happen while (apparently volunteer) firefighters are driving to and from work, for up to 40 minutes at a time in one case.

Radio end users seem to have no idea how or how often their radios transmit. The Albany, NY, police dispatchers have gotten aggressive (probably due to a new SOP, but I don't know for sure what caused it) about calling police officers when their radios key up at random. The police are beginning to learn how often their portables key up when they have no reason to transmit. The fire department needs the same lesson.

If every firefighter "needs" a portable radio, then there should be some controls:

1) The radio does not leave the station with an off-duty firefighter.
2) The radio is turned off when the ff is in a response vehicle.
3) The radio is turned on at the scene when the ff is given an assignment that includes reporting in. Pulling ceilings and controlling the nozzle are not such assignments - Interior should be making any needed reports. Besides, a ff who is performing one of those tasks does not have a free hand to use the radio anyway.
4) The radio is turned off at the scene before the ff gets back into the truck.
5) Portable radios should be designed so that, when a speaker mic is attached, the PTT button on the case is disabled.
6) Speaker mics should have transmit lights.
7) Everybody who ever gets anywhere near a radio during the course of their duties should have drilled into their heads that they mic should be treated as live at all times. Don't say things you don't want the whole city, or at least your supervisors, to hear.
8) Everybody with a radio should be trained to check their radio to see if it is transmitting when the channel gets too quiet. By this I mean look and see if it is transmitting, not key it up to see if it will.

Dispatchers need training in better tactics for handling stuck mics. Repeatedly calling, "All units check your mics" accomplishes nothing. Everybody knows there is a stuck mic except for the person whose radio is attached, and they can't hear you.

Also, just keying over the stuck mic when somebody is talking near it makes it impossible to figure out what radio it is or where it is located. Conversation, recognizable voices and background sounds should be evaluated as clues, not covered up.

 

[902]

I don't disagree with your bullet points, Dave. Many of these items are taken for granted and even conventional systems need a system manager who determines minimum acceptable configuration. For example, going back in my "career," I defined minimum standards for access to a particular conventional repeater system because of a number of similar incidents that people created with personally-owned garbage. My scourge at the time were the 10 Watt Wilson radios that were about at the end of their life and were virtually unmaintained for about 15 years. I was getting epic-length stuck mics on a chronic basis. I REQUIRED that, in order to access the system, EVERY transceiver, portable, mobile, or control station, be programmed with a time-out timer set to no more than 60 seconds. If you can't get to the point and say what you need to in a minute or less, it needs to be said face-to-face, not over the radio (hams in particular HATED that [I'm a ham myself]). ALL radios had to be programmed with end-of-message unit ID. I could decode MDC1200, GESTAR, or Kenwood Fleetsync. Any of those were acceptable. The repeater was a Quantar, so P25 could also ride on the system. ONLY I could assign IDs, analog or P25. An unknown user would be challenged regardless of agency. Any duplicate ID would trigger an inquiry to the chief or department head.

And, the biggie: as the Wilsons came in for service (because the $13,000 repeater, $400 worth of cable, $1,200 duplexer, and $800 antenna were so crappy that there must be something wrong with the repeater because no one could hear it reliably on their 16 year-old Wilson), I would take it to the garage and put a sledge hammer to it, permanently pulling it from the fleet. A shovel, broom, and garbage can were next to the sledge hammer. Those were replaced with M1225 mobiles at the time, and although the M1225 didn't have an ID, all of the TOTs were enabled.

After a while the repeater system actually "worked." And, yes, I was not well-liked. Oh well. But the holistic system performed better, horseplay was reduced to virtually zero because of the IDs on the big fleet of radios that used the system (although onsey-twosey radios and volunteer radios were allowed to not have ID *IF* they had a TOT in them).

Moral of the story: communications is NOT a free-for-all. I think you are saying that, too. It has to be managed through active process and training. Then it can be the conduit it was intended to be.

 

[radioman2001]

I don't get it, ALL radios manufactured today have ID and TOT. Why either would not be enabled is beyond me, and TOT is a FCC requirement. I agree an end of transmission ID is preferable to pre TX so you know who is transmitting, not the 2 dozen or so other key ups when there is a stuck mic. As far as all the other bullets I don't agree with most of them.
A lot of FF and PD for that matter have their own personal radios nowadays, so telling someone to not have a radio off duty means nothing. (BTW my department allows this, after the radio is checked and programmed by the department) Also having a radio on you but not turned on at the scene, in transit or pulling ceilings or the like is like a gun without bullets, useless, unless you want to hit someone with it. What about in the event of a ceiling collapse, are you or anyone else going to have the frame of mind to turn on the radio and or hit the EMERG button? The part about having a TX light on the mic and the radio PTT disabled with the SPK/MIC attached I like and that really should be a FCC reg, but it is not. Maybe some SPK/MIC manufacturers will read this and pick up the ball. (I might today try and make a few for my own 1250 portables) If the operator of the radio doesn't know how to use the radio properly then you have a bigger problem than just sitting on a mic. As far as dispatchers calling about the stuck mic what you say is sometimes true, but if there are a number of FF or PD standing around one another it DOES work. Dispatchers getting agressive about keys ups is good, my agency has a problem with our PD hitting the EMG button to see if the radio is working, the result was not what they expected. Now every 15min they have a roll call, that will teach them to harass the dispatcher. The big picture here is that radios are a tool, and nothing else. You can use an axe or gun the wrong way unintentionally and have a really bad day. Training, training, training is the right fix, and training for a stuck mic should be done too.

 

[902]

I don't get it, ALL radios manufactured today have ID and TOT. Why either would not be enabled is beyond me, and TOT is a FCC requirement. I agree an end of transmission ID is preferable to pre TX so you know who is transmitting, not the 2 dozen or so other key ups when there is a stuck mic. As far as all the other bullets I don't agree with most of them.
A lot of FF and PD for that matter have their own personal radios nowadays, so telling someone to not have a radio off duty means nothing. (BTW my department allows this, after the radio is checked and programmed by the department) Also having a radio on you but not turned on at the scene, in transit or pulling ceilings or the like is like a gun without bullets, useless, unless you want to hit someone with it. What about in the event of a ceiling collapse, are you or anyone else going to have the frame of mind to turn on the radio and or hit the EMERG button? The part about having a TX light on the mic and the radio PTT disabled with the SPK/MIC attached I like and that really should be a FCC reg, but it is not. Maybe some SPK/MIC manufacturers will read this and pick up the ball. (I might today try and make a few for my own 1250 portables) If the operator of the radio doesn't know how to use the radio properly then you have a bigger problem than just sitting on a mic. As far as dispatchers calling about the stuck mic what you say is sometimes true, but if there are a number of FF or PD standing around one another it DOES work. Dispatchers getting agressive about keys ups is good, my agency has a problem with our PD hitting the EMG button to see if the radio is working, the result was not what they expected. Now every 15min they have a roll call, that will teach them to harass the dispatcher. The big picture here is that radios are a tool, and nothing else. You can use an axe or gun the wrong way unintentionally and have a really bad day. Training, training, training is the right fix, and training for a stuck mic should be done too.

Why don't they program it? Because everyone and their brother, from Lucy and Ethel 2-way to some high-volume radio distributor in another state/country who has never made contact with the system manager, to the user himself has the capability to program and the only thing that's relevant to them are the frequencies and CTCSS/CDCSS codes. Then, to paraphrase Raul Julia from Gumball Rally, what's-a behind me is not important.

You don't get the TOT if you don't deliberately enable it. You also don't get channel naming conventions, so someone can put in a dingbat mnemonic and get jammed up on scene because the other guys "don't have it" when they really do. A local example to you was the SPEN plan in NJ. SPEN 1 was INTENDED to be CTCSS, completely. SPEN 2 was INTENDED to be CSQ. SPEN 3 was INTENDED to be CTCSS. SPEN 4/JEMS 4 was INTENDED to be CSQ. Reality was two-way shops programmed whatever they wanted and you had a mish-mosh of whatever out in the field. Most of the time it worked, but??? Very often I thought of taking some channels and just putting LTR controllers on the systems I was responsible for in the Midwest to kill all of that. Want to use the system? Get an authorized device and be assigned the proper parameters. What I ended up doing was getting community panels and using a DPL for the input and a regular tone for the output. This "fixed" some issues.

Many radio shops are lazy, and procurement people, cheap. For example: a county goes out and buys a fleet of 350 radios that are supposed to work in "P25." The radio shop programs 4 channels into the radio with no TOT and the individual IDs of each radio are 000001. An underpaid slob in county government had to (twice) trunk-dive every vehicle (often removing golf clubs, crates of municipal toilet paper, artillery, and spare tires to get at the abomination of an install), and bring in personnel who were issued personal equipment to reprogram them all properly. The cost, had the shop done it's job as intended, would have been an extra $43,750, presuming $125 per subscriber unit for a "complex" codeplug of multiple zones and personalities, never mind T&M rates to develop a plan of what should go where, or make the radios work intuitively based on policy.

Or, they have no clue that planning needs to happen and that some embedded features were bought with the system and can enhance operations and safety. If they do have a radioman, he's so far down the food chain that he's "told" what to do by some IThead, rather than being actively involved in the planning process. This seems to be the case in most places. The person who might know only gets hands-on after it's alpha foxtrot uniform.

So you can end up with anything that accesses, and it doesn't even have to be a Bafung radio.

I've got a fix for the emergency button issue: push the button and you don't have an emergency or think you're about to have an emergency? Say "bye bye" to one accrued vacation day. It'll stop.

The speaker-mic issue is a very big deal in some circles, and the manufacturers both OEM and after-market, are looking into methods of making them more resistant to failure in "Hazard Zone" (IDLH) environments, particularly from fire/flashover.

 

[yardbird]

snapple4th very well said

Fire ground channels should always be simplex.

David

 

[sfd119]

Sometimes the stuck mic situation isn't user caused...it's weather caused: imgur: the simple image sharer

 

[DaveNF2G]

duplicate - please ignore

 

[DaveNF2G]

The user should still have the situational awareness to realize that a) the radio is frozen and b) no other radio traffic is being heard. A radio in that condition should be turned off. Per SOP, if necessary.

 

[DaveNF2G]

Why don't they program it? Because everyone and their brother, from Lucy and Ethel 2-way to some high-volume radio distributor in another state/country who has never made contact with the system manager, to the user himself has the capability to program and the only thing that's relevant to them are the frequencies and CTCSS/CDCSS codes. Then, to paraphrase Raul Julia from Gumball Rally, what's-a behind me is not important.

I agree with everything you say.

Everybody using the system has to buy in to the controls. The "wink-and-nod" system of "authorizing" radios has to go away. Volunteer chiefs, in particular, need to get serious about controlling who has radios and what radios they have.

Ultimately, unauthorized access to any radio system is a violation of FCC Rules, licenses notwithstanding. It's hard to get the Commission to move on some enforcement actions (although the recent appointment of a new head of that department gives some hope), but aggressive complaining and specific reporting should help. A nice official Notice of Apparent Liability for $10,000 will get somebody's attention.

 

[sfd119]

The user should still have the situational awareness to realize that a) the radio is frozen and b) no other radio traffic is being heard. A radio in that condition should be turned off. Per SOP, if necessary.

That user is me, Dave. I also program radios for various agencies & departments and understand operating temps, conditions, etc of the radios including what the SOPs say. I was very much aware what was going on with my radio and unfroze it several times. When you are actually in the hot zone, it freezes up within a minute. Weather happens, every radio mic was like that due to the temps being WELL below freezing and the obvious water being sprayed. Should we have shut EVERY frozen radio off when you are dealing with a IDLH enviroment? Should we have just shut every radio that had a frozen mic off? If yes, then no one would have had a radio to use.

We have IDs on radios, so we know pretty quick whose mic is locked up and once it "unsticks" IC can advise the user of an open mic...or you know...when you get close to the person with the locked up mic, you know who it is pretty quick.

Let's get off the "on paper usage" and get to "real world application".

 

[DaveNF2G]

If a radio is not functioning, except for jamming an operations channel, then who benefits from leaving it turned on?

 

[902]

Let's get off the "on paper usage" and get to "real world application".

There are a number of people from the fire service and manufacturing community doing exactly that right now. The line firefighter has need for a transceiver that is entirely different than those used in law enforcement, EMS, or non-IDLH fire service applications. Yet, it's been customary to buy "a radio" and be surprised when it fails in extreme environments.

Keep your eyes on NFPA 1802.

 

[902]

I agree with everything you say.

Everybody using the system has to buy in to the controls. The "wink-and-nod" system of "authorizing" radios has to go away. Volunteer chiefs, in particular, need to get serious about controlling who has radios and what radios they have.

Ultimately, unauthorized access to any radio system is a violation of FCC Rules, licenses notwithstanding. It's hard to get the Commission to move on some enforcement actions (although the recent appointment of a new head of that department gives some hope), but aggressive complaining and specific reporting should help. A nice official Notice of Apparent Liability for $10,000 will get somebody's attention.

The Commission absolutely hates to fine public safety agencies. That's not to say they will not, or that they have not - they will, and they do - but they still hate doing it. There is usually an element of politics involved, and being a political animal, the Commission tries to avoid things that Congress (especially) views as being counterproductive.

I used to look at the different two-way shops in the region. I sent programming parameters out to each of the vendors and made sure that whatever they did complied. There was only one step where they had to call or email me with the serial number, department, personnel assignment if they knew, and I would send them a unit ID from the spreadsheet. My rules were TOT and unit ID - especially in P25 mode, but also EOM in analog. I did business with most of them for one thing or another, but my weapon, if you will, was the bid list. There was only one time when I had one vendor removed from that list, and it wasn't for programming (don't tell a county department that I wrote a spec for that you could sell them a duplexer for $500 less than I wrote the spec, then try to get me in trouble by telling the department head that they cost less than what I spec'ed... except the lesser product they spec'd at price X was marked up 100% from what I could pay to buy the thing directly from a distributor... that game was a losing proposition for them).

The only times there were any problems were if someone programmed the equipment themselves and had no idea of what the requirements were, or if they bought the equipment from some big bulk two-way distributor "elsewhere." Then there were no guarantees the devices could even perform the functions that were minimally required.

 

[FireMarshalRob]

I guess ill jump in here. I've been in the fire service and law enforcement community for some many years. Dave, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and that's ok.

Let me just point out a few things. To base ones opinion of every working member on a fire ground having a portable radio on stuck mics and budgetary constraints is fairly stupid.

Stuck mics are nothing new, whether the IC and line officers have them, or every member does, stuck mics are going to happen. While operating at a fireground on simplex this is not tragic, especially if the dispatcher has a good ear on the transmissions. Agreed that the likelihood increases with more radios, however in reality this is really not an issue.

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

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?

Of course, just my 2 cents.

 

[DJ11DLN]

I guess ill jump in here. I've been in the fire service and law enforcement community for some many years. Dave, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and that's ok.

Let me just point out a few things. To base ones opinion of every working member on a fire ground having a portable radio on stuck mics and budgetary constraints is fairly stupid.

Stuck mics are nothing new, whether the IC and line officers have them, or every member does, stuck mics are going to happen. While operating at a fireground on simplex this is not tragic, especially if the dispatcher has a good ear on the transmissions. Agreed that the likelihood increases with more radios, however in reality this is really not an issue.

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

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?

Of course, just my 2 cents.

+1,000. A lot of talk here from "armchair quarterbacks" and not enough from people with years in the fire service. Your post is a breath of fresh air, Rob.

 

[MTS2000des]

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?

This is a top post of 2014.

P25?
That is what I call the Race to Waste

And it will continue, as the corporate government makes way for the few vendors to profit even more on the next competition in the taxpayer blitz olympic games, LTE for public safety.

And we all will pay for that scam too. BOHICA!

 

[jim202]

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.

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. The intent is to put the wet stuff on the red glow. With the smoke all the way down to the floor and your crawling on your hands and knees, the heat is starting to get to your back and your hands can feel it through the gloves. 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?

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.

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. 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. Your helmet has started to melt and your boots are getting way to soft. Yup, you should have backed out long before the heat got that high. Yup you should have opened up the hose and let the wet stuff fly to cool down the space your in.

The other point that has stuck out in this discussion is stuck mics. This boils down to very poor control over how the radios are programmed. 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 spent well over 35 years with the fire service in many different departments over that time. I have also spent some 45 plus years working with servicing radios and writing bids spec for those radios. The stuck mic is an easy fix. If your department is having this issue, its because your department management and the radio shop have not addressed the problem. It only takes a couple of minutes to fix the problem. In most cases, the setting up of the computer will take longer than changing the setting in the radio software. Jump up and down in front of the chief, lay down in front of the fire truck. Do what ever it takes to resolve your department's problem with stuck mics. It can be fixed very easily.

I would suggest a short timer setting on most radios. If you can't get your message across in less that 45 or 60 seconds, your talking too much. Have training on radio use. Training on keeping messages short is again not a rocket science. On the fire ground, unless it is in direct response to a radio call, you probably don't need to originate a transmission unless it's an emergency or your an officer.

Lets fix these problems. It's not hard to do. But it might take changing what you have been doing for a long time. Making changes in the fire service are like trying to pull a mule to the water and making him drink.

Jim

 

[902]

Bravo, Jim!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[w2csx]

I guess my question is this, why change a VHF system that seems to work quite well to this digital system? I'm not sure digital is best suited for FD's? This narrow band this has been so blown out of whack in my opinion.The sales people in the radio industry have certainly said the right things and lied pretty well to get contracts.