RFS going P25 + new paging system

[soupbones]

Why do you not think the RFS could run paging for the whole state out of one room. Plenty of paging systems out there that have been doing something similar for many may years now, sending out pages across the state, even interstate. Unless you know where a pager is going to be at any one time, how else can you make sure that all pagers concerned get the page?

[vk2fear]

So true Soupbones

[ivahri]

Well it totally depends on what you are using paging for. The days of using paging to pass routine messages to anyone, anywhere is long gone- SMS is available & doesn't require spending bucket loads of money on a new network. My understanding is that paging is being used for turnout/incident notification- and that is what you do need it for. So why would you send a page to somewhere that is nowhere near the incident? It is just a waste of artime to send a page to a firefighter from Wagga while he is on hols in Bega... like he is gonna get in his car & respond! Modern turnout systems can direct pages to just the paging transmitters in the area of the station- and all automatically. That keeps transmission delays to a minimum, and that is what matters the most.

Cheers,

Richard

[Bigfella237]

~ The days of using paging to pass routine messages to anyone, anywhere is long gone ~

Huh? Somebody should tell my local RFS district that!

It is really, really annoying when you're on-call and you keep getting garbage pages about somebody's truck being ready or some training course that's now open for applicants!

It wouldn't be so bad if they took the time to learn about prioritizing messages with the A, B, C & D capcode suffixes, at the moment everything just gets sent with a "D"...

For my money I wish Homebush was taking over the operational aspect completely and just leaving administration to the district offices?

Andrew

[vk2fear]

In the Southern Highlands Team all fire calls go to pager and sms,all other msg go to sms due to the amout of shift works we have.I think its works great.

[centralcoastscanman]

~ The days of using paging to pass routine messages to anyone, anywhere is long gone ~

Huh? Somebody should tell my local RFS district that!

It is really, really annoying when you're on-call and you keep getting garbage pages about somebody's truck being ready or some training course that's now open for applicants!

It wouldn't be so bad if they took the time to learn about prioritizing messages with the A, B, C & D capcode suffixes, at the moment everything just gets sent with a "D"...

For my money I wish Homebush was taking over the operational aspect completely and just leaving administration to the district offices?

Andrew

So do I, far more professional and less general chatter on their air as my old rfs comms unit at gosford the amount of crap that went on over the air was ridiculous, combine that with people who cannot use a radio to save their lives made for a very dangerous situation if they were ever on the radio when a firecall was underway.

[criten]

I like the RFS document that says historically its the mobile telephone networks that collapse first...

Just like 09/11/2001 where NYPD, FDNY & Port Authority's radio networks collapsed with congestion/overuse in a matter of minutes. The public responded second. Thats actually well documented.

[ivahri]

Hardly a typical example me thinks... it isn't every day that a plane takes out the communications tower... RFS have to deal with loss of sites through fire- tends to be a whole lot less sudden than 9/11.

What impacts public networks is congestion, followed by loss of back up power. It is a fact that public networks become unusable first... and I'd hate to be an emergency service person depending on a communications medium being used by people for non essential communications in a time of crisis.

Cheers,

Richard

[criten]

I don't disagree - I just found that point interesting

[SKEYGEN]

SMS is available & doesn't require spending bucket loads of money on a new network.

SMS gets delivered on a "best" effort basis, and I use that term very, very loosely. A "no particular effort" basis is more accurate. I'd hate to rely on it for anything important.