Search Towradgi NSW

[aircadet]

Just a small note on a search under way just north of Wollongong. You have resources from the police, ambulance, surf life saving, marine rescue, ses and vra. You think any of them can talk to each other? How long will it take for the Govt to realise that communications between agencies in this state are diabolical. Rant over!

Cheers

[matthewn1983]

One would think that's what the GL and Eso talkgroups are for? Or am I mistaken?

[aircadet]

That maybe the case... last eve agencies finally liaised via surfcom PMR analog frequency... old school! Have monitored lots of incidents over the years and often seems to be the case, agencies revert to a PMR analog frequency. I know the GRN works but maybe its a case people have not been fully informed as to how to use it? Not sure but something has to give.

[Sigint]

It is all a matter of politics.

Generally, the people in the field are not told of the availability of the Liaison channels, mainly because the bosses of the individual organisations don't want to loose control of THEIR people.

--
Sigint

[rustynswrail]

Just a small note on a search under way just north of Wollongong. You have resources from the police, ambulance, surf life saving, marine rescue, ses and vra. You think any of them can talk to each other? How long will it take for the Govt to realise that communications between agencies in this state are diabolical. Rant over! Cheers

While interoperability is sold as the panacea that will fix all government comms, it is not ideal in this situation. Why does an SES person on the ground need to speak to police? If they need police for example they go through the chain of command, then someone in a position of responsibility determines the urgency etc of the request and acts accordingly. If the soldiers from one service could communicate at will with the soldiers of another service it would be chaos. We need the 6 degrees of separation at searches. By all means have a common communications system such as the GRN, but don't have interoperability where all can communicate with all. No doubt others will disagree, but as someone who has been involved at command level in these situations, I can speak with some knowledge.

R

[JAFO]

Communications between Gov Based Emergency Agencies is not a problem, but between non Gov agencies such as SLSA, VRA, Marine Rescue is a different situation if those agencies have to pay for the equipment, in many cases not always possible with limited available grants or donated funds.

One reason regional/district coordination centres for such incidents were developed, every agency sends a rep and equipment and all work from the same incident Co-ord room, has worked well for many years

[rustynswrail]

One reason regional/district coordination centres for such incidents were developed, every agency sends a rep and equipment and all work from the same incident Co-ord room, has worked well for many years

The way it should be...

R

[aircadet]

No worries guys... thanks for the replies!

[SKEYGEN]

The interop spiel originates from the radio manufacturers, rather than the agencies. It's what you get when they apply the same sales pitch here as they do in the USA.

Direct radio interoperability is necessary in the USA because of the way they work over there, where you have heaps of relatively small, separately operated local agencies working in close physical proximity, with mutual aid agreements with each other.

When an asset from one agency responds to an MA call for another agency (say, a fire appliance from town X responds to town Y 10km away), the other agency owns them for the duration of that call and the borrowed asset falls into their command and control structure.

[ivahri]

Either way interoperability can happen if agencies need it. Grant & Rusty were spot on the money with their replies- but if they needed it there are the GL & ESO talkgroups along with a host of simplex channels. The challenges tend to be human rather than technical.

Cheers,

Richard