Mal may have said those things Darius - but i await for the official written advice saying thats what will occur. It certainly wouldnt be the first time something has been said and something totally different actually happen.
yeah true but in this case if people are not told differently they will keep doing things as they have been. After 1st July if you respond and Adelaide Fire say "go to talkgroup 120" you should reply "through which station or base?" then if they don't know or say none, you say you will remain on 124 until one opens.
I will be surprised if anything written comes out by 1st July to answer all the questions raised last night (although would be happy to be surprised).
Apart from the actual merger - what do you consider were the other good points?
Well perhaps the biggest single improvement will be that SOCC and MFS Comcen will not have to phone each other to respond brigades (eg. brigades already on MFS direct paging versus those responded by SOCC). It may also improve the responding of fire appliances to 000 calls taken by the SAAS comcen, or then again maybe not until SACAD comes in.
Other things are MFS have a better set up comcen that SOCC, in terms of redundant power and communications links. Also apparently better GRN voice recording and automatic existing procedures for fallover to SAAS then SAPOL comcens in the event of overload/failure, prioritising of 000 calls etc.
Things not yet mentioned on here are:
- there is a new phone number to contact Adelaide Fire (although I imagine the old one groups already direct-paged by MFS have will continue to work),
- MFS comcen operators are being trained in CFS procedures and the ex-CFS OCOs are being trained in MFS procedures. You will not have different types of operators depending if it's a CFS or MFS appliance calling, all operators will be doing all comms,
- Regional Coordination Centres (RCC) will not take over comms on the regional ops talkgroups, even on TFBs (this is obviously paving the way for future changes to talkgroup usage and management when SACAD comes in),
- Adelaide Fire can still assist with weekly pager/siren tests although it sounded to me like they would prefer not to,
- there is no requirement to transmit arrival messages, sitreps, appliances on training, return to station etc messages to Adelaide Fire, it should be to brigade station or group base or RCC (although it wasn't explained what role the RCC will take in operations if they are not answering the regional ops talkgroups), however you can do all the above if you wish, although again sounded like they would prefer not to,
- AIRS reporting remains the same (fax/phone to SOCC), new web-based system coming soon apparently including the ability for groups/brigades to see their call details/stats online,
- no K-codes for CFS appliances and MFS operators will use the appliance names not codes (eg. "Burnside Pumper" not "2919"),
- Air Ops will stay with SOCC for now,
- Gary Bau is the liason and first "port of call" for any problems with responses
Problems raised last night and not resolved are:
- default time of 4 mins or 6 mins? was going to be 4 mins for everyone, suggestion to compromise on 5 mins but really it should stay like it is now (there is no reason for all brigades/groups to be the same)
- issue of Adelaide Fire calling the group ALERTS number to get acknowledgement of receipt of a response page. This one clearly hasn't been thought through and several problems with this approach were raised (it showed a lack of understanding by HQ staff about how many groups operate - which I have to point out could have been discovered by them earlier, and resolved, by consulting with the regional management committees).
anyway that's enough typing from me!!