Katoomba Comms

[JAFO]

I am staying out of it, bitten once twice shy

[criten]

FBEU + the left wing Blue Mountains Council vs the Liberal State Government... kind of predictable ain't it? I'd be surprised if they didn't pick a fight. It doesn't mean that they have a valid argument...

Curious. I knew nothing of this subject.

As a Katoomba resident, I don't see how the wind storm reinforced the emergency centres roll... certainly at work the ADSL2+ link only went down for about 3 hours. Katoomba Police fired up some generators for a few days but they had perfect comms. Where is the communication issue? However the point is still valid as there are scenarios where the Blue Mountains could be left in the dark and an emergency centre could continue to operate if within the Blue Mountains.

The other point also seems very valid, that local knowledge can assist radio operators.

[system_tech]

Katooma Comms used to be a little room in the Katoomba Fire Station. As I said before, there use to be a "Campbelltown" Comms in the the Campbelltown Fire Station. neither had CAD etc, just the teleprinter.

PS Campbelltown didn't suffer!

Closing smaller comms points is an evolution. Effective CAD, written (ie on record) procedures, and appropriate local escalation works.

All emergency services work smarter now than 5 - 10 -15 - 20 years ago.

S_T

[ivahri]

I remember the old Katoomba Comms very well Mal... some of the hardware from there is now at the Fire Museum- some of the oldest comms technology I ever saw in service (pre WW2 and still in service in the late 90s).

Cheers,


Richard

[Longreach]

Just a little off topic but where was the room for the southern tablelands?
And where did it control?
Cheers
Matt

[ivahri]

Hi Matt,

Up till the 90's they talked back to the station (dispatch would still have been Wollongong but no voice radio link- everything relayed via telephone), no repeaters- everything simplex. Then in about 1995 Mittagong, Bowral, Moss Vale & Bundanoon were connected to Wollongong via a 1.5GHz microwave link at the Gib. That was the first time they had a VHF repeater on the hill... I walked in about that time thinking I was in a scene from the Twilight Zone...

Cheers,

Richard

[Longreach]

Hi Richard, ah no worries thanks for that.
cheers
Matt

[system_tech]

I remember the old Katoomba Comms very well Mal... some of the hardware from there is now at the Fire Museum- some of the oldest comms technology I ever saw in service (pre WW2 and still in service in the late 90s).

Cheers,


Richard

Yep, certainly saw that.

I think 88 closed it comms about 95 too but might have been earlier.

[JAFO]

From my Retained Days in Albury, Nov 1989 - 97, Albury Central FS was a Provisional Communication's Center along with Turvey Park FS, and really the only reason I could see for this was for the fact that both Stations had Permanent Firefighters on shift 24/7 to take the '000' Calls for their Districts.

From memory, I think the following Townships/Stations '000' Calls were handled by:
Albury Central Watchroom - Albury, Holbrook, Culcairn, Henty, Corowra, Berrigan, Tocumwal, Finley, Berrigan, Tumbarumba,

Turvey Park Watchroom - Wagga Wagga, Junee, Coolamon, Temora, Cootamundra, Gundagai, Tumut, Batlow,

The Radio System in the Watchroom of Albury Central FS consisted of a Midland VHF Radio with a Desktop Mic and a Swissphone Paging Panel. At the time the only Station Pagers that could be activated via the Swissphone Paging Panel were: Albury Central, Albury Civic & North Albury Retained Pagers, all of which were Tone Pagers and were transmitted over the local Radio Frequency, all other outer regional Stations (Holbrook, Culcairn, Henty & Corowra etc) had their Pagers activated through calling those Station's Emergency Response System (ERS) lines which in returned activated their pagers and Station Siren.

Radio wise, Albury had a VHF Repeater off One Tree Hill (site of current Repeater) and that provided coverage for most of the Albury District out to about 30klm out of Albury along the Hume Hwy, on good weather wise days you could talk to the Turvey Park Watchroom. All the surrounding Station: Holbrook, Culcairn & Corowra etc all ran their own Radio Bases out of their Station's Watchrooms, Culcairn being about the only Station that their Pump Crews could talk direct to Albury Central FS Watchroom Operator.

Around 1993, Albury Central (I would say Turvey Park as well) had a major upgrade if you could call it that of the Comm's Gear with a new Radio & Paging System Panel Installed in the Watchrooms and I think a New Radio Repeater (as Corowa Station could occasionally talk direct to Albury Central via our local Repeater). The Panel from memory now allowed Staff at Albury Central to Activate Pagers of other Outer District Stations via the Panel with out the need to manually call their ERS Systems via the phone, just select the Station Number on the Pager Panel and press send, then the Station members just called up Albury Central Watchroom once they arrived at the station to get the call details.

I got into the Permanent Side of the Brigade in Feb 1997 and the next HUGE Up-Grade started late 1997 I believe with the new UHF PMR System being installed and all '000' calls and Radio work taken off individual Stations and taken over by Wollongong Comm's.

In my view it was a major leap ahead for the NSWFB, it meant that those Country Stations out side Sydney, Illawara and the Hunter/Newcastle Regions were no-longer individual, isolated Fire Stations, but 'A Station' in a Bigger network of Stations. You could now hear Station right across the entire Geographical are that the Comm's Center Covered, Station's 2nd Appliances were now being responded to neighboring townships to assist Stations with larger jobs, where only a couple of years before those jobs would have been handled by that single crew.

It really made our Service a single service rather then mutable individual town brigades, well in my eyes anyway.

[JAFO]

Another argument that goes against the lost of ‘Local knowledge’ is the advancement in technology.

I was in the Albury Ambulance Radio Room back in the mid 90’s a couple of days after the ‘Caller Number Identification System’ was installed.

A ‘000’ call came in with a female screaming my baby and the caller hung up before passing any call details to the Ambulance Dispatcher, but the CNI had an address of the land line, so the Dispatcher sent a local Ambulance Car Crew around to see what the issue was. It was a Mother who had found her Infant face down in the bath after answering a phone call. The infant was revived, but if not for the CNI the result would have ended very different.

So with advancement in Caller Number Identification Systems, Mobile Phone Network/GPS Positioning Technology and how new CAD Mapping Systems use this information, the argument of Local Knowledge is becoming more irrelevant for a operator sitting behind a radio console 100, 300, 800klm’s or even interstate from the job providing all the relevant information is passed onto local crews where the local Knowledge is still held, its only lost when this information is not passed on – that’s when local knowledge is lost.