I was an engineering student at Mississippi State University. It is common knowledge in the school of engineering there that two of the guys in charge of Iraq's Chemical weapons production got their Chemical Engineering degree from my school. MSU likes to list their graduates who have made accomplishments to recruit students, but they don't tend to put this on the list. Ooops. Maybe there is something to restricting foriegn students. They aren't Americans so why should they be able to enjoy our freedoms?
Liberals like to complain that we are losing our freedoms because of Republicans and all of their medeling in "Homeland Security" laws. Well, something must be working because there haven't been any more planes crashing into buildings, bombs being set off, or any significant foreign terroist acts happening in country since then.
And liberals want to get the troops out of Iraq. Great, lets show terrorists that we are quiters and that their tactics work. If Iraq is so unimportant, why is it that they are fighting like hell to get us out of there. That and it keeps them busy blowing up stuff not in our country.
I also am a fulltime FF/EMT.
If there was one thing that cell phone users could do to help, it would be a law requiring callers to stay on the scene when they call in something. You would not believe the number of calls we get for a dead guy (who is really a drunk guy asleep against a building or a tired traveler sleeping in their car), smoke investigations which turn out to be smoke from a fire place, odor investigations which can not be found at all, car wrecks which can't be found. Many times we are sent on a wild goose chase because the information we got from the caller isn't enough for us to locate the complaint. Having the caller stick around to point out what they found or educate them on their stupid call in so they don't do it again would be great.
I can see where it could be usefull for having pictures or video sent in. We have computers on our apparatuses that send us information from dispatch. Getting a picture of a reported sturcture fire where you can see flames coming out of the windows could aid in planning and requesting additional resources early. This is opposed to the call for a structure fire when its really just some dummy who left their beans on the stove too long and smoked up the whole apartment. One engine can take care of that instead of having an entire first alarm respond to take a smoking pot out of the building.
The ambulance company I worked for used the walkie talkie Nextels for communicating things that didn't need to go out over the radio. I wouldn't say they were real reliable.
Back when I was an EMT for an ambulance company, we had 4 banks of radios we listened to. UHF, VHF, digital, and another portable digital. We talked to our dispatch ceneter on VHF, town A's fire dept on UHF, town A's police dept on digital, Town B's fire dept on VHF, Town B's police on portable digital, and then a few other agencies mixed in there as well. It was confusing at first learning which radio to talk to depending on which town's district and what type of a call you were on.
The fire dept I'm on now has been fiddling with trying to get a radio system down. They've gone from analog to digital back to analog, and now digital again. Some people say the digital signal isn't as strong as the analog. Our digital radios don't talk to our police dept. at all. The PD recently went to digital radios, but we still can't talk to them. We have to relay everything through dispatch. As an example, we were on SWAT standby a few nights ago. We staged out and saw a police officer waving his light at us, so we drove on in. As we came in, they yelled at us to get out of there because the scene wasn't safe yet. So we staged again around the corner. Break down in communications? I'd say so.
We also have Toughbook laptops and GSP tracking on all of our rigs. If the system worked reliably, it would be great. Supposedly the GPS coordinates are relayed to the dispatch computers for each call to determine who is closest. Info on each call from dispatch can be seen in the rig as it is entered in the comm center as well as real time mapping to map us into a call. Fairly often the system doesn't update fast enough or crashes and the officer has to pull out the run books to map us into the call. Not that using the old books is bad, but having to make the switch enroute to a call ain't good.
There are channels that have been set aside for interagency operations. They are labeled based on which side of the metro area the call is in. I know the fire protection district next to ours has only in the last few months gotten radios that will let them talk in that new system.
Money is a big issue. Not everyone can afford to get digital radios and antennas throughout their districts. It would be nice if everyone was on the same page. What happens for example when one of the districts that still uses analog radios responds for mutual aid to a district that is covered with digital radios?
As long as the govt has their hands in it, the problem will never get solved.
Slashdot Mirror
I was an engineering student at Mississippi State University. It is common knowledge in the school of engineering there that two of the guys in charge of Iraq's Chemical weapons production got their Chemical Engineering degree from my school. MSU likes to list their graduates who have made accomplishments to recruit students, but they don't tend to put this on the list. Ooops. Maybe there is something to restricting foriegn students. They aren't Americans so why should they be able to enjoy our freedoms?
Liberals like to complain that we are losing our freedoms because of Republicans and all of their medeling in "Homeland Security" laws. Well, something must be working because there haven't been any more planes crashing into buildings, bombs being set off, or any significant foreign terroist acts happening in country since then.
And liberals want to get the troops out of Iraq. Great, lets show terrorists that we are quiters and that their tactics work. If Iraq is so unimportant, why is it that they are fighting like hell to get us out of there. That and it keeps them busy blowing up stuff not in our country.
I also am a fulltime FF/EMT. If there was one thing that cell phone users could do to help, it would be a law requiring callers to stay on the scene when they call in something. You would not believe the number of calls we get for a dead guy (who is really a drunk guy asleep against a building or a tired traveler sleeping in their car), smoke investigations which turn out to be smoke from a fire place, odor investigations which can not be found at all, car wrecks which can't be found. Many times we are sent on a wild goose chase because the information we got from the caller isn't enough for us to locate the complaint. Having the caller stick around to point out what they found or educate them on their stupid call in so they don't do it again would be great. I can see where it could be usefull for having pictures or video sent in. We have computers on our apparatuses that send us information from dispatch. Getting a picture of a reported sturcture fire where you can see flames coming out of the windows could aid in planning and requesting additional resources early. This is opposed to the call for a structure fire when its really just some dummy who left their beans on the stove too long and smoked up the whole apartment. One engine can take care of that instead of having an entire first alarm respond to take a smoking pot out of the building.
The ambulance company I worked for used the walkie talkie Nextels for communicating things that didn't need to go out over the radio. I wouldn't say they were real reliable.
FF/EMT
Colorado
Back when I was an EMT for an ambulance company, we had 4 banks of radios we listened to. UHF, VHF, digital, and another portable digital. We talked to our dispatch ceneter on VHF, town A's fire dept on UHF, town A's police dept on digital, Town B's fire dept on VHF, Town B's police on portable digital, and then a few other agencies mixed in there as well. It was confusing at first learning which radio to talk to depending on which town's district and what type of a call you were on.
The fire dept I'm on now has been fiddling with trying to get a radio system down. They've gone from analog to digital back to analog, and now digital again. Some people say the digital signal isn't as strong as the analog. Our digital radios don't talk to our police dept. at all. The PD recently went to digital radios, but we still can't talk to them. We have to relay everything through dispatch. As an example, we were on SWAT standby a few nights ago. We staged out and saw a police officer waving his light at us, so we drove on in. As we came in, they yelled at us to get out of there because the scene wasn't safe yet. So we staged again around the corner. Break down in communications? I'd say so.
We also have Toughbook laptops and GSP tracking on all of our rigs. If the system worked reliably, it would be great. Supposedly the GPS coordinates are relayed to the dispatch computers for each call to determine who is closest. Info on each call from dispatch can be seen in the rig as it is entered in the comm center as well as real time mapping to map us into a call. Fairly often the system doesn't update fast enough or crashes and the officer has to pull out the run books to map us into the call. Not that using the old books is bad, but having to make the switch enroute to a call ain't good.
There are channels that have been set aside for interagency operations. They are labeled based on which side of the metro area the call is in. I know the fire protection district next to ours has only in the last few months gotten radios that will let them talk in that new system.
Money is a big issue. Not everyone can afford to get digital radios and antennas throughout their districts. It would be nice if everyone was on the same page. What happens for example when one of the districts that still uses analog radios responds for mutual aid to a district that is covered with digital radios?
As long as the govt has their hands in it, the problem will never get solved.
FF/EMT
Colorado