What’s old is new

To the editor:

Back when I was on the job, it was simple. Big sirens were on the firehouses. On-call firefighters and volunteers carried tone+voice pagers.

As a dispatcher, I would push a couple of buttons, announce the call over the radio, and companies and volunteers were reliably on their way.

Before I retired and having moved up the ranks, I was my agency’s communications officer. The FCC was changing frequency assignments (mainly bandwidth), and many systems were going digital. Reliability became questionable, and I was glad to get out.

Having retired as a career member and now a volunteer technical rescue supervisor, I found that communications once again became a headache.

We avoided the fancy systems that on occasion “missed” entire fire stations and went to WhatsApp and GMRS.

I’m in a rural area like Marion County, and responders aren’t going to carry two-way radios while doing chores around their properties or listen to them all night.

Logically, WhatsApp and GMRS are not practical for a multi-agency dispatch center. However, there are other alternatives.

One simple fix is good old-tech analog: VHF low band that provides good coverage over long distances.

Motorola tone-voice pagers can be acquired reconditioned for less than $100 each, sometimes as low as $60.

Distinctive groups can be paged on separate pager tones, and members then can receive radio traffic with dispatch details and updates.

If things are happening in one part of the county, volunteers and officers can monitor the radio traffic through their pagers to get a sense as to whether they should anticipate a call-out.

Simply connect the tone encoder board to the low band frequency and simulcast the main fire channel radio traffic originating from the dispatch center with the low band frequency.

The old, tried-and-true saying is that in an emergency, seconds count. Maybe not all the time, but if someone is having a heart attack or a fire is approaching a structure, not having a call-out go thud could make a significant difference. And sometimes the simplest system is the most reliable.

Willis Lamm
Stagecoach, Nevada