Louie1961
Member
I keep hearing reference to a new fire channel on the original Thomaston fire channel that they shared with the ambulance (453.225). Has anyone heard what is going on? I don't see any new channels in the database.
Thomaston FD new channel?
- Thread starter Louie1961
- Start date
sefrischling
Public Information Officer
They may be referring to the LCD CLMRN channels.
Thomaston is not an LCD customer.
The fire dept has switched over to the DPW channel, EMS remains on the old channel.
Louie1961
Member
REALLY?? Cool, thx.
MarkB513
Member
Would you happen to know what the DPL or NAC is?
Louie1961
Member
So this begs the question, what is the DPW using for a frequency? Or are they just reverting to cell phones?
Off the top of my head, no, however it is the same DPL as the old channel, I believe that is in the DB
sefrischling
Public Information Officer
Really? My mistake, I thought they were on LCD.
MarkB513
Member
I only asked because the DPW frequency didn't have a DPL/NAC listed. I'll try the one used on their previous frequency, thanks.
I think, and dont quote me, that it was talked about at one point, but never came to fruition. Thomaston, Watertown, and New Milford are the only independent ones left in Litchfield county.
Will that be forever? who knows. I think it would be great if they were, regional dispatch as a whole has been a very good thing
MarkB513
Member
I don't want to open up a can of worms in follow up conversation, but if a town has its own PD, why pay another department to dispatch their fire/EMS? I get it, if they don't and their covered by the troop, etc.
If someone finds out the PL tone, a submission to have it added to the DB would be nice.
IIRC, (many years ago) it was who was going to do EMD for those types of calls. Smaller depts (who may only have a single telecommunicator on at a time) would not be able to meet the requirements spin the 'Wheel-o'-EMD' and provide services to police and fire units. Town i'm in now even dowgraded from a Primary PSAP to a Communications Center (sic) as they don't take any 911 calls anymore, even secondary PSAP functions.
I don't even see Thomaston listed in the 'recently updated' PSAPs in the master (racist?) registry, however most of the rest of the State is updated. They're way down there on the bottom w/o even a transaction date, meaning they're likely copypasta'ed in from prior to 2004.
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MarkB513
Member
I'll admit and I'll use New Milford as an example, I remember the days of the "New Milford Answering Service" dispatching most of the surrounding fire and EMS, when the New Milford Police station was part of the town hall and obviously much smaller.
And then there's Torrington and Waterbury having outside agencies dispatching their police departments? I guess I'm old school, but it would seem like there's a problem when they can no longer do this themselves (for whatever the reasons might be). And I'm not downing LCD or Northwest in anyway....
$$$.
they don't have / can't / want to pay the money it takes to do it right.
Some times it's just not cost effective for a town of 12k to try to duplicate what a neighboring town of almost 30k can sell them for a reasonable cost.
Louie1961
Member
As a resident of Thomaston and an avid listener, I don't think they are contemplating changing their dispatching arrangement anytime soon. Police, fire, ambulance and public works are all dispatched out of the police station. And I doubt very much if they do EMD at all. They never give EMD codes to the ambulance, and I have called 911 for a personal medical emergency more than once (bad heart...chest pains). They never asked any detailed EMD questions or gave any pre-arrival instructions. If they did do EMD, I should have been instructed to take aspirin.
Louie1961
Member
I think opinions would be mixed on that. I have not heard any glowing reports out of Terryville since they switched. Also did you see the story in the Waterbury paper this week? Apparently one of the NWCPS cdispatchers made over 300 fake 911 calls in order to falsify the service levels of their contract with Waterbury (95% of the calls answered in under 10 seconds). And the director of operations admits to standing behind the supervisor while he did that and was aware of what the supervisor was doing. That's fraud. I am amazed the people named in the news story are not fired yet. That story makes gives me pause about the wisdom of regional dispatch, and I wonder what controls NWCPS will put in place to prevent that from happening in the future.
All of the people involved with that scandal are no longer with the company. Things seem to be looking in the right direction with the new director, but time will tell. Its unfortunate that a few peoples malfeasance gives the whole company a black eye, as there are several skilled and highly respected dispatchers there, but you hardly hear about the good stuff, media loves a nice scandal though.
They are EMD capable, I know that much, whether or not they do it, I don't know. I'm not sure how effectively a single person center can perform EMD and dispatch units at the same time. But EMD is required by law, so if they didn't have it, they'd have to send calls to somewhere else. And there are towns that do that, many towns utilize North Central CMED for their EMD services, because again a single person dispatch center can't effectively give EMD instructions and dispatch, or if another 911 were to ring, etc.
Louie1961
Member
I hear you, but speaking as a CPA, every company, for profit or not, should have internal controls to prevent and detect these types of malfeasance. It is a hallmark/requirement of professional management. Leadership gets the black eye because these controls were never put into place. The board of directors get a black eye for not ensuring management did this. So while there are undoubtedly good and capable dispatchers there, unfortunately the company as a whole does get judged for these failures.
