Do you hear all your other stations' dispatches?

A group from our department is investigating better ways to dispatch our 5 stations (5 engines, 2 cross staffed trucks).
- 85 line personnel and we do NOT run ambulances (ran privately).
- 6500 calls/year.

Currently, the way our dispatches work is if you were at Station 2, you would hear all 6500 tones and only respond to 2000 calls.

The question at hand is how do you guys get your dispatches?

What is the size of the Department? calls/year?

How many different/backup notifying devices are used; pagers, tones, rip and run?

How long has current system been in place? Do you like it? Change?



We would like to move to hearing just "our own station tones" in order to be able to address some of the health problems associated with interrupted sleep and lack of sleep in the Fire Service. WE VERY WELL recognize that getting up in the middle of the night is part of our job, but want to find a better way to do it. And before you call bull$h!t, read this article on firefighter sleep deprivation.

Your comments and input on this is very much appreciated! Answer what questions you can or want to. And if I've left anything out that would better paint the picture, let me know.

Sounds like you have automated dispatch, no watch desk. So ours might not help you... Large metro dept., about 700+ runs per day, 56 engines, 27 ladders, 30-50 medic units (dep. on time of day), 11 chiefs plus a gaggle of other units (rescue, FMs, dep. chiefs, specialized units, fire boats, etc.)

We can and do hear every dispatch city wide. We have three means of dispatch - 1. PA, 2. CAD, and 3. scanner/radio. Dispatch comes in, man on watch will hit lights/bells/doors as appropriate to each unit in the house. Then grab the printout to have for the officer, and call out the assignment/address. We still keep handwritten watch logs with our house's runs, as well as the surrounding companies.

1. Public Address - This is the "official" dispatch method. Every dispatch for every unit in the city is broadcast over the PA to every station. AFAIK, it is a "hardwired" connection between our FCC (fire communications center) and each station. If the other systems fail, you'd better be listening up to this or you'll miss a run. It's been in place since the horses were around, I think.

This is also used to announce road closures, hydrants OOS, and other messages deemed important to somebody or another, like the commissioner...

2. CAD (Computer Automated Dispatch) - every watch desk has a dedicated watch PC. When a dispatch for a unit in a particular station comes in, a big red box flashes with a unique sound alert. The dispatch information then will pop up on screen and automatically print out - address, time of dispatch, box #/location, run #, type of alarm, etc. Will also print out some (not all) additional info the calltaker has gotten, say "uncon in grey BMW" or a call-back number. Primary means of dispatch when in station, but not "official". If the CAD goes down (99.9 % reliable), or run just doesn't come over it (rare), but the PA goes off, the chief will have your butt if you're not listening.

It's windows based, this system's been around for about 7+ years. Current system replaced an older DOS system so we've had this overall available for some time. (I think; last CAD long before my time.)

3. Scanner/radio - Much the same as the one on the truck, can listen to any particular band but can also scan any/all bands. Primarily set to your primary fire band, often used to listen to tac channels of jobs going on around city, especially if nearby. Only means of dispatch when out of the house - no MDTs yet, except the medic units and chiefs. We have the city divided north/south, each with a fire band, medic band, and three tac channels, plus assorted rarely used channels like hazmat, heavy rescue ops, etc. Digital/trunked system in place for (5+??) years.

If all three have failed at once, don't worry, you'll be on the street for armageddon anyway...

Hey there,

My city is a mid-size suburb near Houston. We average about 5000 runs/year between 4 stations.

We have 2 forms of dispatch:

1) Z-tron: This is a computer assisted form of dispatch. When a call comes into a specific district, only the z-tron for that station will go off. It automatically turns on the lights in the dorms (if at night) and informs us of the call over the speakers in the station.

This way, only the specific station needs to be informed, not each station in the city. Also, each apparatus has a pager assigned to it, so when a call comes in, besides being told the information over the speakers, we also have the info waiting for us in the fire engine when we leave.

2) Our portable radios can be left on (in case z-tron goes down), but then you're going to hear each call in the city. So, this is a secondary form of dispatch, and much less desirable.

I think the z-tron would be worth looking into for your stations.

Take care,
Pete

We are a decent size city. 23 companies and 3 bat. chiefs. 20 stations in all and about 40,000 calls. Dispatch is done by the following ways

1) the call is sent to the MDC on the truck. meaning if you are riding down the road it pops up. This is the quickest method.

2) The call is sent over the computer to the "plectron" (I dont know the modern term for it) system and the bells and light come on. this is the slowest method and does not work 100% of the time.

3) the watchman is responsible for listening to the radio. If he hears a call dispatched he will alert the station if the bells dont go off. He will also usually yell out which company it is if a multi-company house. Or if it is a fire or ems call. Also listen to make sure the calls are not improperly dispatched. Meaning fire in your first due and you are not put on the run.

4) lastly if not marked responding to the call. the dispatcher will call the station on the direct line from the fire ddeispatch.

usually for us we listen to the radio during the daytime. the watchman will turn the radio up for working fire or anything that sound interesting.

If we get to the 4th method of dispatch the watchman is in trouble. He is ultimately responsible

Plectron is the past now it is called FRAP [Fire Rescue Alert Paging] or Vocal Alarm.

I was there before the Plecton system was installed.

I guess the last resort of dispatch would be the ring down phone, direct line from the Communication Center to each house.

To the OP, your dispatch center needs to be on selective dispatching so only the company(s) that are dispatched will hear the tones.


No one wants to hear a company going at 2 AM if its not your compnay.

Not sure what our system is or what it called way before my time here and back during the High Band VHF days. It's now been reworked to work with 800 trunked. But each of our 5 stations has it own tone/decoder that will opening up the box which will then turn on select lights and open up the radio to hear dispatch... During the day we turn the box to Day which allows us to hear every dispatch, then before sleep we turn the box to night which turns on the box to only open for our tone.. The radio in office has it own speaker which is not controlled by the box, so if your in a light sleep you can hear it..

We have 5 station and run around 2000 calls a year...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CaptOldTimer

Plectron is the past now it is called FRAP [Fire Rescue Alert Paging] or Vocal Alarm.

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Thats what it is called i was drawing a blank. thanks capt.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RFD21C

Thats what it is called i was drawing a blank. thanks capt.

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Never seen anyone 'draw' a blank. ;)


No problem Pal glad to help out. Is the CFD radio still hooked into the system? Do you guys go on that or wait for the RFD alert?

They still have it a 22. However ours was making some horrible nosies, so CFD came and picked it up. Now we have to wait for it to be dispatched through RFD radio first. I did hear that we were going to get the FRAP to somehow monitor and go off when the CFD hits our tones on their radio system. However that is way above my computer and radio skill set. I am just happy to figure out the new handhelds we have.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RFD21C

They still have it a 22. However ours was making some horrible nosies, so CFD came and picked it up. Now we have to wait for it to be dispatched through RFD radio first. I did hear that we were going to get the FRAP to somehow monitor and go off when the CFD hits our tones on their radio system. However that is way above my computer and radio skill set. I am just happy to figure out the new handhelds we have.

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The plan was after the big three went to the 800 system and frap all cads were suppose to be tied together so if cfd needed a rfd company could see if it was available and dispatch it direct if they were. Same for HDF as well. Plus for it to work ion reverse so the rfd could dispatch either cfd or hdf. I knew it would take a long time to get the three cads to talk to each other. Maybe one day..

Now when HFD gets on line with the 800 that is the same as the big three, you'll be able to talk direct to them and them to you.

just got that ablity about two months ago for the radio. now on every radio we have all of CFD, HFD, HANfd channels. each in a different zone. our primary zone now even talks to us when we change the channel. fancy!!

the cads i dont know that much about.

I cannot thank you enough for the interest and responses to this thread. It is all great information.

You are correct we do not have a watchman. We have a 911 dispatch center that handles all emergency calls for the county, which is approximately 10 fire departments (only 1.5 of them paid). Most people in our dept. who are opposed to changing our current dispatch protocols say the reason is, our that 911 makes to0 many mistakes.

For example, E1 goes on a call, 911 somehow doesn't clear them from the call, next call > they dispatch E4. Another one, some areas b/t districts consistently have the wrong unit dispatched.

None of our engines have MDTs, thus the dispatch center does not know where any given unit is. Do you think this is the major factor in dispatch errors?

I'm also curious to those that have replied and may reply after this: DO YOU HAVE MDT's IN YOUR ENGINES?

I replied on your other thread with the information I had. I'll add in here about the MDTS.

All of our response vehicles have MDTs with GPS. All priority 1 & 2 calls get the closest units (so if someone is driving for fuel out of their district and a priority call comes in right next to them, they get it). Priority 3 and lower get dispatched to the unit assigned to that district, if they are available. The 911 dispatch center uses CAD and it recommends units based on the above factors (it also knows what units are BLS/ALS). They are able to override the CAD as they see fit. Units can clear over the air or using the MDT. They are also responsible for marking back on station. This cuts down on errors substantially.

If I may confuse things a bit...

My District covers 5 counties, 22 firefighters, 13 units ( we are a state forestry district) all 9 stations have the same radio network (repeater system, w/ simulcast on all channels (4)). with everyone up on the repeater system, we now hear dispatch as well as all other units in our district (we don't have tones or anything, just voice)(before we'd hear dispatch, but not the mobile units)

We have 5 stations, 7 companies. We have our own dispatcher who receives information from the 911 call taker, then enters them in the CAD, selects the companies to respond, and transmits the alarm. 4 of the 5 stations are new/rebuilt and have a pager system that sets off a speaker "Station response" and 3 beeps-followed by the Dispatcher's radio announcement. It also turns on the dorm lights and flashing lights in the workout room. The 5th station is the one with the Dispatch in it, it has an older plectron that works similarly without the voice. These systems reset after about 30 seconds. We do not have separate tones for companies in the double houses-too bad for the truckies:D

Each rig has an MDT. We get address and maps, and can place ourselves enroute, on scene, in service, and remove from call. We do not designate anyone to be on watch at the outlying stations. If for some reason the alerting system didn't work, we would get called by phone and radio.

Prior to the plectron in 1991, they had dedicated ringdown "hotline" phones from the Dispatcher. We have the capability to leave the speaker open, but stopped doing so during the first year after getting the plectrons. Some stations/platoons leave a scanner on during the day, some don't.

Only on the watch and the officers desk area's has monitors so they can hear the calls. If something is working, the fire alarm will notify all houses of the worker and they officer in charge can if they so desires flip a switch on the vocal alarm so all speakers will broadcast that job. Normally this may occur if a second alarm is struck or if the companies may be due on the third or larger alarm(s).

Wet, in my department everything in the house has separate alerting system so that if the truck goes, the other companies or unit don't get the alert in their dormitory. Of course if the houses goes all dormitories gets alerted.

All our apparatus have mdc's and we get the dispatch info there as well.

For those that say they have a "watch" and/or your own dispatcher I'm curious how old your departments are and whether you are East vs West coast. Also how does that work, somebody has to stay up all night?

Its amazing the variety of ways departments dispatch. But all in all I see that we may be severely lagging behind the technology curve, especially not having MDT/MCT's. Anybody have grant information for getting them?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wet on Red

For those that say they have a "watch" and/or your own dispatcher I'm curious how old your departments are and whether you are East vs West coast. Also how does that work, somebody has to stay up all night?

Its amazing the variety of ways departments dispatch. But all in all I see that we may be severely lagging behind the technology curve, especially not having MDT/MCT's. Anybody have grant information for getting them?

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Most departments east of the Mississippi have watch desks in the engine houses. There may be some west of the Missipp as well.

There are also a lot of department large and all career that find they do not need an MDT/MDC on the apparatus. They do find using the radio for all messages to and from. It is call tradition.

As RFD21C had said their dept using the Vocal Alarm system to all houses. The actual name is FRAP installed by Motorola when that department and the two adjoining career department on either side of his as well are using the same radio system, MDC's and related equipment. They are all assigned different zones so any or all mobile and handheld radios can be used to select the system of agency that they are operating in. Not only those fire agencies but the local police and medic providers as well.

Likewise the departments in the Norfolk/VaBeach/Portsmouth/Chesapeake/Newport News/Hampton, etc are using the same system as well as the departments up in Northern Virginia, aka NOVA and the others across the state of Virginia as well.

Each of these departments are served by a central dispatch center that does fire-police-ems-and other agencies. Our dept is over 150 years paid and 225 years as a department.

Decidedly old, east coast; as a paid dept., we only go back to 1871, but we are "Franklin's Own"...

Watch schedule officially rotates every 2-3 hours:
10 hour days - Platoon A
0800-1000 Adam
1000-1200 Bob
1200-1400 Charlie
1400-1600 Dave (Adam again if single house)
1600-1800 Ed (Bob...)
14 hour nights - Platoon B
1800-2100 Frank
2100-2400 George
0000-0230 Harry
0230-0500 Isaac (Frank...)
0500-0800 Joe (George...)

Some houses/platoons have their own system which works for them, some guys like being up from 0300-0800 and permanently sit that "watch"; others will pay to not have to sit 0230-0500. Rules state that no man should sit two consecutive watches. They're broken up so guys can manage to stay alert. (Actually our rules just for watch duty are 10+ pages long, but are a bit out of date. e.g., TV & radio OK at volume lower than PA/radios, but they forbid VCRs, and make no mention of DVDs, let alone PCs/gaming consoles/etc.)

all i hear at night is voices in my head