What I have suggested is essentially the same system used by European FDs. (Germany, England, Switzerland, etc). It is also the same system used by FDNY.
Al perhaps you missed my comment that all firescene traffic will be on simplex channels. Relay would be done by the drivers as FDNY does. The only NFPA recommendations that I know of mention 1 dispatch channel, and 1 simplex firescene channel. You say that the existing systems have multiple dead spots. That clearly is a major problem. The idea of patching comms from VHF to UHF never seems to work as far as I can see. It requires using 2 channels to do the work of one channel. At the present time, I hope that every IC is required to maintain comms with his dispatcher, his onscene UHF portables, and his onscene VHF portables. This requires a minimum of 2 channels for each incident. I think the system is broken at this time - severely broken. This is masked by the fact that disasterous fires are very infrequent. I suspect that any critique of any future working fire in any highrise, educational, large scale occupancy, or highrise in Essex County will make multiple references to radio comms problems. As with the Chelsea Conflagration of 1973, the Worcester Cold Storage fire, the Lancaster LODD fire, the West Roxbury LODD fire, Charleston SC, WTC, Indianapolis, etc etc etc I do appreciate the opportunity to revisit my thoughts on this subject. Maybe I should try to bend the ear of the NFPA 1221 committee again. Perhaps their love affair with trunked systems has waned. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "massfire" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massfire?hl=en.
