First Responder Networks 5 Years After 9/11 189
stinkymountain writes, "Five years after 9/11, you'd think all of the nation's first responders would be on a state-of-the-art wireless network that would enable police, fire and other emergency personnel to talk to each other in case of a disaster. But they're not -- yet. Network World ran an investigative piece sketching why progress has been so slow, and describing the progress that has been made." The article leads off with a scenario that represents the toughest possible test for a first-responder network. Even the best imaginable networked system might bog down in the midst of "fog of war" situations.
Hey Congress! (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a chance to bring a shit load of money to your districts WITHOUT it being considered pork! Duh!
Re:Hey Congress! (Score:4, Informative)
A device called a repeater is a radio receiver and transmitter that re-transmit the low power walkie talkies from a high location, with much higher power giving these hand held transceivers much increased range both in terms of receive and transmit distance .
This so called failure was no failure at all
Its a political Football for one simple reason
Many of the the repeater(s) that provided these communications were on the trade center itself !
Nothing else need be said,
No matter how well it worked, It cant work if it is gone
Poleticans can care less about how it works. And why it cant
Repeaters on trucks are also now commonplace. (Score:2)
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A proper command and control structure solves many of the communications in a disaster
Re:Hey Congress! (Score:5, Informative)
There are several basic reasons for this: 1-There is old technology still in use. 2-Current systems were paid for piece-meal, by one department or another and not purchased, planned, or configured for wide dispersion communications cooperatives. That is to say that the fire dept. buys their gear, the police buy their own gear too, and someone has the unfortunate job of trying to make the two systems match up at some level, usually not a great matchup. 3-Financing means that the updates to even the most coordinated of communications systems happens in fits and starts. So, while the police get new comms gear, its 5+ years before the fire dept. catches up, but then their gear is much better, or supercedes the old police system. Hospitals get upgrades even less frequently! Now, add to this the need for additional comms channels to FEMA, Army, National Guard, Coast Guard, municipal utilities, power utility, gas, water, etc. etc. The chances of getting all those systems on the same page is a bigger problem than just getting FEMA to take appropriate actions.
After 911, there were multiple deptartments, cities, and services involved. After Katrina/Rita, there were multiple states involved, and their multiple comms systems.
The only sure way is a huge forklift style upgrade of just about everyone's comms systems. BTW, adding geographical redundancy is a huge cost to all those groups, so get ready mr. and mrs. taxpayer... its a huge cost.
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I have some idea of how to build and maintain distributed RF networks. They way you phrased your question seems to indicate that you do not. I get the thought that you and others have this model in your head where Radio systems are all some magic digital mesh network. They are not. Many of them are using 15 year old technology or older. To create the kind of emergency network communications system that we all think should already be in place would require a basic replacement of much of the current communic
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Ambulance services are starting to hook into AirWave as well, and from what I've seen when working as a volunteer medic at live events (100,000+ people) the difference between talking to your local team, talking to the site team and talking to police on the site team is as simple as hitt
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First of all, most of those design criteria are only relevant for maybe 1% of real-world situations. Optimize for the 99% case and have a handful of units on standby for the extreme cases. Second, I'd bet your average cell phone has better life expectancy under adverse conditions than most of those police radios. Why? Because they are mass-manufactured and have to be able to survive the abuse of teenagers and have a low enough failure rate that the manufacturer won't get dumped by the cell provider. Se
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So, when I see your quote:
The only sure way is a huge forklift style upgrade of just about everyone's comms systems. BTW, adding geographical redundancy is a huge cost to all those groups, so get ready mr. and mrs. taxpayer.
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CB channel 9 for 802.11 (Score:5, Interesting)
This 802.11 emergency channel that could be activated and used by emergency personell equipped with special radios - kind of a "skype-911".
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Re:CB channel 9 for 802.11 (Score:5, Insightful)
Internet methods for emergency communication in a burning building where the power plug has been pulled? Dependence on computer systems in these types of emergencies?
I don't thinks so.
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802.11 was designed for this. Indeed, it is pretty nearly ideal. It is capable of setting up temporary local networks on an ad-hoc basis. While depending on a building's Wi-Fi to be functional would be suicidal, Wi-Fi as a technology in a hand-held device is -exactly- what is needed. Put two radios on each device and whichever one has a clear shot at a live Wi-Fi hot spot outside can relay the data.
What is needed, and what is lacking currently, is a protocol built on top of this to provide reliable mu
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please go and read the 802.11 standard. Wireless networking in the ISM bands is not what this is all about.
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No, the bottom line is that, when you're inside what is essentially a faraday cage, you're screwed. You might have the radios figure this out and talk directly to eachother, but that's about as good as you're going to get. The only way around it that I
Re:CB channel 9 for 802.11 (Score:5, Insightful)
And both are valid solutions I was thinking of mentioning (ignoring the one about blowing down a wall). Why can't the radios mesh and have one (or more) that can talk to the nearest fixed repeater act as a local repeater? Why can't they have repeaters they can drop in the middle of the building to take care of the problem? I know that some police cars have repeaters built into them, so why not have a briefcase one for emergency use? If it's such a huge warehouse, I'm sure that police cars could have driven in it directly, why not drive the cars in and have the repeaters in them help out?
The problem is that the people designing the systems are non-technical and the technical people are being involved only after the system is designed and the budget is approved. When someone is given $5 million to build a wireless network to have 98% outdoor coverage and that is the correct amount for that task, he can't make it also cover inside to that same 98%. So, they need to get the tech people in the design process sooner. They need creative people with technical understanding to come up with scenarios like the failure listed so that the people that approve the budget can decide whether they will or will not address such problems.
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It might be feasable to do it with either a
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They already do that, at least for GSM equipment, not sure about the US stuff.
During the london underground bombings they turned off public access to the cells around aldgate.
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To add to that, GSM towers at the moment (at least in the UK) prioritise calls to the emergency number, and *will* throw non-emergency calls off-air if the tower is full. Competitor's towers will also take an emergency call, regardless of any roaming agreements, and you do not need to have a valid phone service - even without a SIM card, the emergency number should still work.
As an aside, the TETRA [wikipedia.org] system is being deployed in a number of european countries for the emergency services, and this system allow
Japan as well... (Score:2)
The only number a user can dial is an emergency earthquake voicemail number (which is only active in the emergency situation...don't ask me how they test it). When you connect, you type in your own mobile number and you can leave a message saying where you are, that you are OK (or that you need assistance), etc.
People outside the area can call a differe
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I don't know about any other US carriers, but Nextel does. Both for the directconnect (walkie-talkie type) service and regular phone calls. If I recall, there are 5 levels. 1.) scrub, 2.) 3.) Local emergency managenent/police/fire 4.) Federal Responders 5.) presidential entourage. I don't remember what 2 and 3 are....but you get the idea.
Cellular network traffic prioritization. (Score:2)
I'd assume other networks are similar but I don't have direct experience.
A local... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I mean, we know the government is subject to inflation, just as we are - but then as inflation goes up, so do wages and taxes collected. It SHOULD be a wash.
(the reason is simple - expansion of government, and none so quickly as under the current administration).
I'm a volunteer firefighter... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm a volunteer firefighter... (Score:4, Informative)
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Consider yourself lucky. Rather than fixing/adding repeaters for our old low band VHF analog system, we got a new Motorola 500 mHz trunking sytem that cost millions, and each radio costs $3200 (HT) and $3500 for a mobile. And they don't work any better. And all of our old frequencies are now each a talkgroup. So much for that dream of dynamic allocation of departments and equipment per incide
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What happens is they go call the company(ies) they know - like their original vendor, with whom they have an ongoing relationship via support anyway - and ask what options are available to solve the problem outli
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The problem here is not that you've got the wrong kind of government. The problem is that you've got the wrong kind of people. Changing the system won't solve the problem that you have idiots doing important jobs.
Homeland Security is a farce (Score:2, Interesting)
Easier said than done (Score:3, Insightful)
Like a lot of things, this is one problem that cries out "Something must be done! This is something; therefore, it must be done."
It's easy to look at the communication failures on 9/11 and recognize we need a better way of doing things. And it seems like a fairly simple problem that can be solved by a neat, tidy bureaucratic process. But as the example of the warehouse full of refigerators shows, it's really not that simple.
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A friend of mine once told me, the way to build an effective emergency system is to cause an emergency and see what people use and what they discard - the parts and processes they still use are the once to build the system out of.
Walkie Talkies, a truck unrolling a spool of fiber down the street, a bunch of bystanders on exercise bikes generating power, and
Over kill may be the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on people streaming video is nice but not at the expense of calling for help.
Maybe they should start carrying a few simple HTs as back up for their super wiz-bang system.
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Think lots of reflections and deadband issues.
That has nothing to do with video...
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A simple 11-meter "CB" system would have probably worked just fine in that building. It sounded like they are using a hub based system but I am not sure since I really don't know much about digital trunk radio systems. I brought up the streaming video because in the article they talk about rangers streaming video and getting weather data in real-time.
Even if you are going to use broadband style system it would seem to me that a mesh system would be more resilient. Of
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Wrong frequency and wrong modulation method.
You want something that will surive multpath reflections without a lot of degeneration - that says over 100-200 MHz.
You want somthing that can sort out the signal and work with it after it has reflected off of a bunch of things and is getting received. If it is voice alone, then something like FM would work.
But then I just described a lot of the police radios already out there.
If you want it to be digital, then you need a multipath r
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I used CB because I blanked on the exact name of the family services radios. I was thinking of cheap and off the shelf. The ARRL members do a great job when all else fails. I may be helping them set up an 802.11b network so they can stream video, and send other data over it to the fire stations from the EOC. I am a novice at radio
Feb 2009, FCC Mandate (Score:4, Informative)
Probably the biggest single reason is the lack of available spectrum needed to support broadband wireless devices for public-safety radios.
That is finally about to change. The FCC has mandated that TV stations give up the 700MHz channels and that bandwidth be available for broadband public safety applications. Unfortunately, that switch wont occur until February 2009.
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If they really cared they make the change stand by it and let the broadcasters piss, moan and fork out the cash to upgrade.
You can bet if the FCC had backbone the broadcasters would upgrade. They'd complain, try to lobby congress, threaten, use scare tactics telling people their TV will die...wait a sec...don't they already do this?
What does 9/11 really have to do with this? (Score:5, Insightful)
The warehouse shootout they mentioned probably would've happened the way it did, 9/11 or not, and the departments would still have complained that they needed more funding for better comms gear than they can afford.
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The problem, in my opinion, is not really lack of funding on homeland security, it's just not really being put in the right places.
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we all know they could have waited until after the mid-term elections to make the announcent
government failure in action (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, good for you, Mr. Cubicle Farm Prairie-doggin' Dissent Hater.
There are a multitude of reasons why individuals are unhappy with the job their government does. The samples you link to include someone who is unhappy with unnecessary spending, smoeone who was unhappy with the sluggish response to 9/11, and someone who is skeptical of the utility (and the
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A future with less certainty, but a future none the less. I would rather have the freedoms than the security, if you made me choose only one. But, based on your comments, you prefer security. Should we impliment nation wide curfews? That will cut down on drunk driving and nightime crimes and such. It would make us safer. Just arrest everyone out after 10 p.m.
Awesome article pitcure (Score:2)
Way to go team!
Of course not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have reformed our INS department, so that people who pose no threat could gain citizenship with more ease, and people who might be a threat were deported.
Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have the most secure airlines in the world, with sensible screening processes, yet we do not.
Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have had an honest review of our interventionist foreign policies since the end of the cold war, by Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush yet this hasn't happened.
Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have made more progress in developing our own energy, or finding alternative fuels to use.
The only conclusion we can draw is that government, especially big government moves slowly, and is not doing the will of the American public. The American public is just too distracted to care. I blame world of warcraft.
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That's completely unfounded bullshit. I assume you come to this conclusion in one of the common ways: the government doesn't tell you of the millions of phone calls, emails, and letters they get from citizens and organizations who care, so you assume they don't get many; Bill O'Reilly and others broadcast that the public is in uproar over "the war against Christmas" and never mention what the public is actually thinking since they don't know.
The fact is on
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Actually, only one thing tells the general public what to think - Rupert Murdoch. Well, maybe all the gay "reality" shows on Bravo a little bit too.
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Voter turnout tells us that people think the candidates are too similar to make a vote matter,
You are assuming this, but if people really cared they would pay attention and we wouldn't have candidates that are 'too similar'. I could get into how both parties rigged the presidential debates so no third party candidate could get in after Perot scared the crap out of them in 92 (19% in a 3 way race is a good showing).
If people really wanted a four way debate badl
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Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have more than just a hole in the ground where the WTC once stood.
If they can't even, LITERALLY, fill a fucking hole in the ground, why on earth would anyone expect this government to get anything else done?
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1. There was a lot of debris. I don't think anyone who hasn't seen the towers can possibly understand the enormity of these buildings. It simply doesn't register unless you've stood at the base and looked up. People think "yeah, yeah, a couple of big buildings, I get it." while picturing a large building they may have seen and thinking "it's a little bigger than that." Wrong... it's like 10 times bigger than that. My wife's never
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Printable Version (Score:3, Informative)
Article doesn't look at every state (Score:3, Informative)
After multiple years (starting well before 9/11) and Millions of Public Dollars, Ohio offically rolled out MARCS (Multi Agency Radio Communication System)in 2004-05. The system has towers in all 88 Ohio counties and bosts coverage of 98% of the state (some of the terrain in Southeastern Ohio prevents total coverage). MARCS has enabled all agencies, whether it be the State Highway Patrol, EMA, County Sherriff's, City Police, and other responders, to communicate with each other without restrictions.
MARCS has also been studied by other states that are in the process of implementing their own first responders network. The article would have been better if it looked at all 50 states because while those mentioned might not be ready, I am sure there are others Like Ohio that have deployed or in the proccess of deploying multi-agency networks.
Another problem.... (Score:4, Informative)
I know this because I work in public safety and we have this problem. 800 Mhz systems are being pushed heavily right now, yet nobody thinks of the problems. Sales reps gloss over problems, saying that these systems will work so much better than the VHF systems they are replacing. But these new radio systems work in the same general frequency range as the cell phones everybody has. How many times are your calls dropped because you drove into a valley or walked into a building? How would you like to be an officer searching for an armed suspect when that happens? I have had that happen, and trust me, it is not a good feeling when it does.
The sales reps will say you don't need any extra tower sites for the new system, what you have will be more than enough. But for decent coverage in the UHF band you need your antennas on the high ground so you can cover the low areas of your coverage area and you need a lot of them. Cell phone companies understand this and put their towers on the high ground near areas of heavy usage. Unfortunately, public safety does not get anywhere near as many, and those that they do have are often set up where they already have land, such as the back yard of fire stations. These are frequently not in the best location geographically for radio coverage, and money is not spent on obtaining decent transmitter locations.
Sales reps don't care about this. All they care about are sales. They know that once the sale is made, they are out of there and it is no longer their problem, but the buyer's. Sounds a lot like the IT field, doesn't it?
There are 4 types of liars (in order):
4. Liars
3. Pathalogical Liars
2. Car Salesmen
1. Sales Reps
So remember the Dispatchers saying, "Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts."
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Another Attack Vector (Score:2, Insightful)
The state of software security being what it is, I wonder if the next major attack would not be accompanied by a day zero exploit of a bug in the radio software that renders all the radios useless because the bad guys uploads some bad software. Vendor diversity in radios may be beneficial just as it is in operating systems.
After one year... after five years... (Score:2)
One year after 9/11, lack of progress could be fairly attributed to the complexity of the problem.
Five years after, it begins to look like incompetence... or lack of will... or both.
The Manhattan Project took four years from start to successful use of the finished product in wartime conditions.
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Mandated signal boosting hardware (Score:2)
Exit signs and emergency lighting that work on backup power are required by building codes. Why not require a small, adjustable, signal repeater in every large building / on every floor of a major building? Obviously I'm just pulling a solution out of thin air, but why isn't something like this pushed harder? The hardware can't be that hard to lay your hands on, and by putting the onus on the busine
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Where our tax dollars are going... (Score:2, Insightful)
Talk about strange.
You'd think that 5 years after this horrible disaster, all of this "homeland security", increased taxpayer spending, would at least help us prepare for another homeland strike..but for some reason, most of us feel more at risk than before 9/11. Even our
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Of course, the controllers did notice the plane's diverted flight path. While this is unusual, it is by no means a cause for alarm. Put yourself in the controller's shoes. It's another normal day on the job. You notice one of your planes changing heading without cleara
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I don't claim a damn thing. I just think that the collection of facts, reports, and things of the like are questionable. Is that so bad? Is it un-American to question your government? Fuck no.
You need to understand that the popular opinion isn't always, 100% the most informed, and you should think for YOURSELF and form your OWN opinion, with as little bias as possible. If you've done that, then great. I see very little of that these days, however, especially with all of the strange things
A fundamental problem.. (Score:2)
Yes, traditional radio communications for first responders don't interoperate well and aren't as 'advanced', but let's look at the solutions. They're proposing digital systems, transmitting in the 800 and 700Mhz range. In other words; microwave technology. Easily blocked by walls, not very long range.
If you wanted short range, but very advanced, digital communications, there are already solutions for that on the mark
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It's nowhere even close to microwave. Microwave is generally understood to mean 3 to 30 GHZ. Not 700 and 800 MHZ.
A Firefighter's Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
I do NOT want cops polluting my tactical channels with their blather. Do any of you own scanners? Take a listen to EMS, Fire, Law Enforcement, and Air Traffic channels. None of these groups want anybody else to contend with when the shit is hitting the fan. The vocabulary is different. The lingo is different. The culture is different. It's hard enough at an emergency scene to keep traffic to a minimum between the various commands, let alone adding several more channels that someone has to monitor, and shout over.
This is why NIMS and Unified Command exist. The various agencies can talk to each other IN PERSON since they're face-to-face, and then relay the messages via their radio frequencies to their people.
We don't want it. We don't need it. If you want to see how we operate in an emergency, ask to be an observer at the Command Post the next time your local jurisdiction does a mass-casualty drill. Airports do them on a grand scale once per year to once every two years. The regional Counterterrorism Task Forces do them once per year. Your regional Emergency Management Agency does it once per year. Watch and learn. We don't need more crap on the radio.
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I have and I also notice that in REAL emergencies your stuff does not work and the HAM RADIO guys save your asses.
Yet you ignore their reccomendations on how to fix your poorly designed communications systems because they are "hobbiests" and "amateurs" ignoring that most have more experience and education than the engineers th
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And what about when something like 9/11 happens and the police and fire departments are working side by side? A massive inefficient and ineffective bureaucracy set up just to relay the same messages two two different organizations that are working side by side? Yes, I'm sure that gets the best response. It would be st
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I'm hearing "everything will break down in chaotic situations, so planning for it is useless." Around here, they have multi-agency training. In most cases, anything that is multi-agency will have the lines ignored, not just blurred. Cops, firefighters, EMTs, military, and other agencies that respond will have overlapping skills. If there isn't any crowd, but there are a lot of wounded, then maybe the firefighters and cops will be working side by side doi
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I suspect this sort of thing would be more useful in the back office/dispatch than in the field? Although being able to, say, send a floor plan of the building you're going to into the apparatus might be useful?
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This is nonsense. With trunked radio, you're all on the same range of frequencies, but your reciever only outputs the messages marked for your group.
You can essentially have radios with a switch on them, that takes them from transmitting to Fire, Police, EMS, etc. So you have your nice FD radio, but when you can't reach the command, you ca
"Toughest Possible Test?" Not even close. Nukes? (Score:2, Insightful)
A ten kiloton nuclear weapon goes off in the heart of downtown Manhattan tomorrow.
How's that for a test? Certainly Iran is doing everything in its power to make this a real possibility...
- Crow T. Trollbot
state-of-the-art wireless network??? (Score:2)
Nick
TETRA first responder network (Score:3, Informative)
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The problem is not the lack of a standard, but the LACK OF MONEY. A plain-old stupid narrowband FM radio is about US$500. A somewhat less stupid radio using a simple trunking protocol like LTR or Passport would be around US$1500. The lowest end APCO-25 or Tetra radio would be about US$2500, with US$5000 being more commonplace. That's for a handheld radio - a mobile is more.
Then you
Progress is slow (Score:2, Informative)
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 n
This is something I know a bit about... (Score:4, Informative)
The problems at the trade center were not so easily blamed on radios. Katrina related issues in New Orleans however, were influenced a great deal by radio communication problems.
That said, here are some things to consider:
1. Most departments are NOT like FDNY. 86% of firefighters in the USA are "on-call" not live in full timers. 96% of departments in the USA are staffed in part or in whole by on-call firefighters, and 40% of the population is protected by these "volunteers". Focusing on FDNY and their issues on 9/11 isn't doing a service to the real problem.
2. With Katrina, every cell tower, every radio repeater, and all the power for thousands of square miles was down. Trucks with portable backup repeaters couldn't operate in the deep water and muck. With no communication, fire crews are acting as islands and cut off from knowing where emergencies are or from getting help. Police had the same problem, but the added issue of a populace which would rather fight them then help them.
Now, taking that knowledge in hand, let's talk about what has happened since 9/11 in my little department. Since 9/11 here's what's changed:
1. Every member of my department has their own radio at all times. This is unusual for rural departments - or was. These radios are not cheap. They run about $1500 each. Remember, not just any radio will do -- they must be "intrinsically safe" (meaning no internal sparks) and must stand up to some fairly serious abuse.
2. Every member of my department (and most in other departments I've spoken to) has complete the now required "NIMS" (National Incident Management System) training and certification process at levels 100 and 700. Most town leaders have also completed this training. Officers such as myself also complete NIMS 300, while chiefs complete several more. This system is set up so that in an escallating emergency all responders are on the same page from a language, radio traffic, procurement, authorization, authority, and responsibility perspective as an incident grows from a single unit response to a multi-state task force. The system is patterned after a very successful program used for years by the forest service.
3. Although most towns still use their own frequencies on their radios, in our area all the towns which are adjacent and most which are one town removed are pre-programmed on our radios. There is also a statewide non-repeated frequency so that any firefighter on the fireground has a way to communicate.
4. I am told, though I have not seen, that for very large incidents equipment exists that allows high level incident management teams from the federal level to respond and "slot in" a radio from each local jurisdiction. This device acts as a switch of some kind, bridging the radio systems on the fly. I'm told a decision on how far down the chain that technology will be pushed is still in the works.
5. Even in our little town of under 10,000; we've gotten together with nearby towns and drilled at mass casualty and hazardous materials incidents.
Now, if you think there are more things we should do, consider that most "volunteers" (remember, that's 86% of firefighters) put in more than 50 hours a year of unpaid training time as it is. Where were you?
The people who understand the failings in the 911 response but are not part of the chain of command are other firefighters. All of us, around the country, can point to things the FDNY did wrong. It's easy to do after the fact. We're also the most reluctant to do so. Our brothers may have made mistakes, but they did a lot of things right in the face of terrible danger and stress. We're reluctant to point fingers. That doesn't mean we don't discuss it among ourselves and in our training.
ROFL! OMG I'm dying laughing (Score:2)
Five years after 9/11, you'd think all of the nation's first responders would be on a state-of-the-art wireless network that would enable police, fire and other emergency personnel to talk to each other in case of a disaster.
I almost choked reading that. I'm a volunteer fireman and know first hand what's out there, at least in rural areas. Communication is exclusively radio out where we are and you have to hope someone knows the freq for the other department or the wing if you're waiting for air lift.
not a problem after 2008 (Score:3, Funny)
There will always be a problem to solve (Score:2)
Translation (Score:2)