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Alerts

Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 8:47 am
by cvrules90
I remember reading that CDF RRU would get a new mechanism for alerting stations with the PSEC. How far along has that come?

Re: Alerts

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:37 am
by Kingscup
The new station alerting system went into service late spring/early summer (I think). I believe the signal is sent through the county frame relay intranet thingy. It is way over my head on this. I don't believe it is sent over the air except for the MDC obviously. Policy still states that stations are still to be toned out for every call so nothing has changed for the scanner listener. Once the digital signal sets off the station alerting system, there is a 30 second window where if the station is toned out, it will not set off the system again. After 30 seconds, it will. I don't know the exact circumstances but I have been dispatched to a call without any tone out or voice dispatch. I am guessing it was really busy in the command center. This is not the norm though.

Several months ago, policy changed to where voice acknowledgement was no longer necessary on dispatches as long as you pushed the acknowledgement button at the station or on the MDC. You will sometimes hear people acknowledge by voice due to various reasons.

Re: Alerts

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 8:12 am
by cvrules90
Kingscup wrote:The new station alerting system went into service late spring/early summer (I think). I believe the signal is sent through the county frame relay intranet thingy. It is way over my head on this. I don't believe it is sent over the air except for the MDC obviously. Policy still states that stations are still to be toned out for every call so nothing has changed for the scanner listener. Once the digital signal sets off the station alerting system, there is a 30 second window where if the station is toned out, it will not set off the system again. After 30 seconds, it will. I don't know the exact circumstances but I have been dispatched to a call without any tone out or voice dispatch. I am guessing it was really busy in the command center. This is not the norm though.

Several months ago, policy changed to where voice acknowledgement was no longer necessary on dispatches as long as you pushed the acknowledgement button at the station or on the MDC. You will sometimes hear people acknowledge by voice due to various reasons.
Any idea when the 2-tone system will go away?

Re: Alerts

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:26 pm
by Kingscup
I don't know. They may never go away.

Re: Alerts

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:54 pm
by cvrules90
Kingscup wrote:I don't know. They may never go away.
I also remember hearing that they might be getting automated dispatch so we''ll see.

Re: Alerts

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 9:33 pm
by zz0468
Kingscup wrote:I don't know. They may never go away.
Back when PSEC was in it's embryonic conceptual stage, and Fire was deciding at what level to participate, the discussion was about having several layers of redundancy for call alerting. There are some regulatory requirements for redundancy. Using the tone outs along, with internet and PSEC provided data, created a level of triple redundancy that actually makes economic and technical sense. I don't expect the VHF tone outs to go away anytime in the foreseeable future.

Re: Alerts

Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 11:18 am
by cvrules90
zz0468 wrote:
Kingscup wrote:I don't know. They may never go away.
Back when PSEC was in it's embryonic conceptual stage, and Fire was deciding at what level to participate, the discussion was about having several layers of redundancy for call alerting. There are some regulatory requirements for redundancy. Using the tone outs along, with internet and PSEC provided data, created a level of triple redundancy that actually makes economic and technical sense. I don't expect the VHF tone outs to go away anytime in the foreseeable future.
Well Riverside City Fire did away with them at the beginning of 2012 I believe, so I'm surprised that CDF RRU decided to keep the tones. Maybe Riverside City will consider bringing them back too...

Re: Alerts

Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 10:36 pm
by zz0468
I wouldn't expect the City of Riverside to ever do anything just because the county did it. Quite the opposite, actually.

Re: Alerts

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 7:52 am
by cvrules90
zz0468 wrote:I wouldn't expect the City of Riverside to ever do anything just because the county did it. Quite the opposite, actually.
WEll for some reason the city and county are independent worlds. I mean San Diego City has it's own trunked radio system while the county is on a seperate one. Maybe Cali needs to opt for independent cities...

Re: Alerts

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:12 pm
by sp1989
zz0468 wrote:I wouldn't expect the City of Riverside to ever do anything just because the county did it. Quite the opposite, actually.
You are 100% correct, and that is one reason I doubt that the City of Riverside, especially RPD, will ever join PSEC.