Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kevin King on September 2, 2007 at 3:41pm

And do away withCODES clear speak is a far better way to make your statement understandable.Communicate brief and clear to the point.

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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on September 2, 2007 at 3:48pm

This is where everyone taking the NIMS class and taking the test independantly would have made more sense. Them giving the option to take the test as a class together doesn't teach the fundamentals to everyone, just to the ones who stayed awake and payed attention to detail in class. NIMS states to use CLEAR LANGUAGE thats common to all on scene. If you use codes, perhaps your code for working fire means breaking and entering to the local PD. A working fire, fully involved, fire through the roof, fire on side 2 with exposure simple things like this that the average person off the street could understand. If it is a sensative issue like a drug raid (haz mat) a general Haz Mat or whatever assemble to a command post and brief the group in person rather than radio. Theres always a way. Thanks for reminding me bro

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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on September 2, 2007 at 4:01pm

"If you use codes, perhaps your code for working fire means breaking and entering to the local PD."

Boy, does that hit home. Just this year we had an inter-county snafu: There was an unattended death somewhere over the county line, and our co. relayed this info to the proper county, using the appropriate 10-code. The other county sent the haz mat team to the reported haz mat incident! Not long after, they started doing away with the 10 codes.

Excellent discussion topic 513!

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Permalink Reply by Erin Shea on September 2, 2007 at 8:20pm

Mike I have to agree with you on this subject, especially after the dreaded BDA fire. I think the communication at that fire sucked. There were way too many people with radio's in hand, and unless you had face to face communication with the IC then you were SOL. There really isn't any training that is given on radio's, they just hand you one and expect you to know how to use it. Some firefighters feel the need to report everything they see to the IC, what happens if you have a MAYDAY? Are you suppose to wait to hear the air horns going off, by that time it might be too late! I just think that there should be a basic training class on the proper operation and communication with a radio.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin King on September 3, 2007 at 2:51am

A basic comm. class is a great idea,but it is yet another training issue.

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Permalink Reply by Randy Macey on September 6, 2007 at 1:36pm

A program I use and it's free for the downloading is Simulator 6 @ http://www.firesimulator.com/sneak_peak.htm this program allows you to hit a couple of great training topics. One is IC as well as proper placement of trucks and
of course use of radios. You drive around your area, take pictures of buildings that
you think would be your nightmare for a fire. Upload it to the program and start to add smoke and flames. You can set this up for size up and then each slide show how the fire is growing. Adding different colour smoke to show the types of different hazards as well as arcks from hydro as well. But your dead on that more training is required and less radio chat used. Some calls we have made note that it might be better to split the channels so that we are not all on one channel. But this is only for those that have the feature. But recommend this program for training, which helps see what you dealing with as well where the mistake are. Great also for pre-planning.

Mace

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Permalink Reply by J Brooks on September 6, 2007 at 3:45pm

Voice amplifiers are a great help as well. Our pump operators wear headsets. If someone calls over the air multiple times and is told to repeat, usually the pump operator can make it out due to the lack of background noise.

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Permalink Reply by turk182 "Shawn Conaway" on September 6, 2007 at 4:01pm

We used to run on 33.70 and did away with it about 13 years ago went to 911 system with 800 mhz when we went to new system we did away with our ten codes and went to using plain language we also have ops channels assigned and a local channel that we send all nonessential traffic through works pretty decent but still get the useless chatter. i think the communication class would be a good idea.

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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on September 6, 2007 at 5:28pm

Most departments here have the Main fire channel (shared by most the local companies, Fireground channels, and a talk around channel. The dispatcher doesn't monitor (or so they say) the talk around channels, but radio ettiquite is required reguardless. Even with more channels, if they don;t know how to properly use a radio it makes for a mess.

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Permalink Reply by GelorupRookie on September 7, 2007 at 6:39am

We have radio issues here in West Aus as well. I think its an overall problem with the type of communication. Training will greatly improve most of the issues but not all.

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Permalink Reply by Alan Fairbanks on October 19, 2007 at 10:16am

I live in Maine in a county call Piscataquis. As of January 1, 2008 we are getting away from the 10 codes and going to common everyday language on all radio communications. The only problem I see with it is that you have all these fire chacers taking off and going to scenes faster than if you hae dispatchers giving us codes. Yes it does make it easier to communicate but if you dont know the codes ya shouldnt be using the radio I have copies of the codes not only in almost every room of my home but also in my cars. That way the more I look at them the easier it is to learn them.

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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on January 26, 2008 at 10:35pm

Again, learning by listening to other f.d.'s within scanner range you would be amazed at what you can hear. Another subject worth revisiting until we all get it correct.

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